Chapter 66 Lachlan
Lachlan
The day of the wedding, Lachlan rose before sunrise.
The last time he’d shared a bed with his brother, they’d both been much smaller with much younger backs—though William’s propensity for stealing the duvet and defending it with donkey kicks had persevered into adulthood. Two nights of spooning had proven so.
He wouldn’t have slept anyway. Lachlan spent both nights tormented—tossing and turning with thoughts of the dewdrop curve in Deli’s upper lip, of the soft skin near her eyes where laughter left its mark.
He hadn’t seen her since the night they’d been interrupted.
Mo had filled him in on the family situation, and of course, he now had William to contend with, so he’d thought to give Deli a little space.
He wasn’t sure why she’d looked so hurt, but he did know panicking and asking her to hide wasn’t his best move.
He was anxious to see her. He missed her.
He was terrified.
You break everything you touch.
Lachlan sawed the last branch he needed from one of the ash trees in Hannah’s back garden.
He was nearly done with the first of his wedding duties, and the sun had hardly risen.
Once he was done, he’d return to working on the beer garden at The Wallflower.
He’d been renovating it in secret for weeks.
Finishing that would take the rest of the day.
That was good. Lachlan wanted to be busy.
He ducked into Hannah’s home just as she hung the phone back on a wall. He heard Mo’s tinny voice say goodbye, and was glad he’d missed the moment he might have been offered the phone. He was avoiding—no, giving space to—Mo, too.
There were two glasses of cloudy lemonade on the counter. He reached for one. Hannah slapped his hand.
“Ow!” He curled it to his chest. “What was that for?”
Hannah looked him up and down and raised an eyebrow.
Lachlan tried for the lemonade only to be slapped again.
“Fine!” He shook out his fingers. “Fine. Deli and I . . . we . . .”
Hannah nodded.
“I’m giving her space.”
This time she made contact with the side of his head.
“Seriously?”
Lachlan leaned backward on his stool at the sound of tires outside. Lorraine MacDonald was in the passenger’s seat of Mo’s car. And Deli was driving it.
“Deli’s here?”
Hannah grinned. He’d been set up.
“You and Mo?”
She winked, and Lachlan had to fight to keep the panic from his face. He didn’t want Hannah to know every instinct was telling him to run.
“Do you know Deli’s mum, Lorraine, is here? She’s not—”
Her dark eyes hardened.
“Ah. So you’re familiar? Hard to believe that’s Mo’s sister.”
Lachlan took a deep breath. Deli parked, turned the car off, and returned both hands to the wheel. Lorraine’s mouth was moving. A lot.
“Should I stay?” The words came out quieter than he intended. Hannah slowly pushed the lemonade he’d been denied across the counter until it nudged his hand.
“Yeah.” Lachlan took a sip, his eyes glued to Deli. “I thought so.”
Hannah wiped her hands on her dungarees, squared her shoulders, and headed for the front garden. He listened as he nursed his glass, straining to catch Deli’s voice on the wind, but there was only Lorraine’s, midsentence as she swung a leg out of the car.
“—really, Delilah, if you want Trey to choose you and not that child-bride, running away to this godforsaken place cannot be easier than a treadmill or something.”
Lachlan’s anger rose, then his stomach lurched at the horrible familiarity of it . . . anger and silence and someone he loved.
“Oh, you must be Hannah!” Lorraine MacDonald smiled as she took to the cobblestone walk. One ankle wobbled. She spoke with a hint of the distinct way people speak to toddlers and the elderly. “Delilah has told me sooo much about you.” She stuck a hand out to shake.
Hannah snorted and spat into her palm, then locked Laurie’s in a vise grip before she could recoil.
Deli got out of the car behind them. The lemonade glass hovered just below Lachlan’s lips as he watched Deli glance down toward her body and tug at the fabric of her shirt, pulling it as far as she could from the slope of her belly.
He finished in a single gulp.
Laurie rummaged through her purse, produced a wet wipe, and furiously rubbed her palms. She looked like one of those smiling dolls with eyelids. “My daughter tells me you have a real green thumb, huh?”
“Mom.” Deli caught up to them.
“Oh! That’s right! The”—she gestured at Hannah with a judgmental waggle of her fingers as she dropped her voice to a whisper—“thing.”
“Hannah, I’m so sorry,” Deli said as Lachlan stepped outside. Laurie tried to drop the wrinkled wipe into her purse, but it tumbled onto Hannah’s lawn. Her eyes locked on to him.
“And who, exactly, are you?”
Deli turned, prepared to put out whatever fire her mother was starting next. Her face drained of color when she saw him. She mouthed his name without making a sound.
Lachlan.
It wasn’t a greeting.
“I’m starting to see why my sister favors the rain,” Lorraine MacDonald purred in his shadow. “I’m Laurie, Delilah’s mother.” She held out a manicured hand like a dog with a limp.
Lachlan forced his eyes away from Deli. He pinched her fingers between his as lightly as he could and shook once. “Lachlan.”
Her smile flickered. “Don’t you kiss to say hello around here?”
Lachlan fought the urge to withdraw as she wrapped a hand around his bicep and tapped her cheek with one bedazzled pink fingernail.
“Mom.” Deli glared with laser focus at the five acrylic talons pressing into his skin.
“Delilah, you didn’t tell me there was such a gorgeous specimen tromping around this little place!” Laurie squeezed, and his skin went white under her nails.
“Can you stop fondling him, Mother?” Deli snapped, tugging at her mom’s shoulder so Lachlan’s arm came free.
She pouted. “I wish I knew what I did to deserve such relentless criticism, Lachlan.”
Behind her, Deli scoffed and rolled her eyes up to Lachlan’s. His breath caught in his chest as she smirked at him. She mimed wrapping her hands around Laurie’s neck and mouthed, Oh my god, and Lachlan had to cough to cover his laugh. A fragile thread pulled taut between them.
It was a funny thing—how a person might not realize they were drowning until they’d come up for air.
Laurie tracked Lachlan’s gaze to her daughter as Deli wiped the smile from her face.
Lachlan was too stunned to react as Laurie pressed a hand to the space between his pecs and began to trail a fingernail down his body.
He caught her by the wrist just before his belly button.
She barked with laughter and looked back at Deli—whose mouth still hovered somewhere between open and closed.
“Doesn’t he look like he belongs on The Highlander, Delilah? ”
The thread snapped. Lachlan dropped Laurie’s wrist like he’d been burned. She brushed past him and into Hannah’s house without an invitation, and Hannah touched his forearm as she stalked after her unwelcome guest.
“Deli, I—”
“Don’t.” She folded her arms over her chest and shrank from his outstretched hand. “Please. Just don’t.”
Lachlan searched her body as she stared at the ground, like he could find some bleeding wound—stop it, bind it, heal it. His arms ached to hold her, to wrap himself around her and absorb the impact of her mother’s blows. Of his.
Deli lifted her chin, defiant and proud, but her eyes shone a sea glass jade.
“So, how’s your brother?”
He looked down. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I know I should have told you.”
“Uh huh . . .” Deli pouted in thought and pinched her chin in her fingers. “That your brother was the star of the dumbass show that inspired this dumbass idea?” Deli’s arms swept toward the Highland hills and sea. “Maybe One of the times that I mentioned it?”
“Yes.”
“What are you even doing here?”
“I had to get some branches.”
She blinked at him. “I have to get some branches. Dogwood.”
“I just needed ash tree.”
She flinched, like the words had struck her somehow, then recovered. Her eyes narrowed. “Where’s your truck, branch boy? I didn’t see it when I pulled in.”
“Cairn and Douglas have it.”
“Why didn’t they use Graham’s van?”
“Graham is picking up the out-of-town relatives.”
He stared at her. She stared back.
“Deli, can we . . .” He glanced over his shoulder to be sure they were alone. “Talk?”
The sound from her throat was something between a laugh and a sob. “Talk? You want to talk? About what?”
He winced. “I know the night didn’t end well—”
“Oh?” Deli cut him off. “Which night, Lachlan? The one where I poured my heart out to you? And you kissed me? And you . . .”
She trailed off. He watched embarrassment flood her cheeks as she waited for him to say something, but his teeth felt glued together.
Deli nodded. “Okay. Do you want to know what the best part was? The best part was being a full-grown woman getting stuffed behind a door. Then peeking through the crack with a breeze on my bits only to realize that your brother was the very man I’m pretty sure my grandmother masturbates to!
” This time her laugh was disbelieving. “A little warning would have gone a long way there, pal. You know what my grandma looks like, right? Quite the mental image.”
“Do you really want me to imagine—”
“No!”
He swallowed.
“Why?” she said.
The silent tension swelled between them as Lachlan’s head swarmed with things he wasn’t sure how to say.
“Just . . . why?” Her voice broke on the last word.
Because I’m a moron? he thought. Because I’m afraid—all of the time? Because William wins everything. Because my father always said . . . Lachlan opened his mouth to speak. He just had to say something. Anything.
Deli’s eyes turned so green when she cried. Sea glass drifting toward the open ocean—treasure fumbled by a fool.
Because I can’t lose you. He just had to say it. Because I love you.
She waited. And waited. And Lachlan couldn’t do it.
Deli spoke instead. “I understand. You’re . . .” She hesitated and stared at the clouds for a long minute. “You didn’t want to have to explain, you know . . . me. You’re ashamed of me. And you regret it.”
She shrugged as she said it, like the thought was a simple truth to be acknowledged and disregarded. Like the idea he wanted to hide her was a common thing—a penny in the street not worth bending down for.
How could he have overlooked how that would have felt for Deli?
She hadn’t told him she was over the man she’d been in love with back home—she’d told him that it just hurt too much.
She told him that the man back home had left her in such uncertainty for so long that she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t keep feeling unsure.
Lachlan had kissed her. He’d convinced her that he was nothing like the guy who’d been hurting her and that he could hold the places that hurt. He’d convinced her to trust him.
Then his brother had shown up, and he’d completely panicked.
He wasn’t a man anymore, he was a child—except instead of hiding William from their dad, he was hiding Deli from William.
William, who would see her as a pawn in a game.
William, who took whatever he wanted and never looked back. William and his selfish, petty ways.
No matter how much time passed or how hard he tried, Lachlan was a coward.
He’d stood by and said nothing when his family’s baggage had threatened to hurt her. Or perhaps it was worse. Perhaps he really was just like his father—content to hurt the woman he loved as long as his own pain stayed buried.
You break everything you touch.
It was Lachlan who was unworthy of her.
“Deli . . . no.”
“It’s fine, Lachlan. You can say it.”
“I’m not ashamed of you—”
“I told you, do you remember?” Deli walked toward him, angling to pass without looking up. “I told you you’d be disappointed.”
He grabbed her arm. “Deli. Please. Let me explain.”
She went rigid at his touch, staring forward before snapping her head up. She glared, daring him to say something that could salvage this. But all Lachlan could think of was the look in Deli’s eyes when she’d realized that he’d promised to care for her but wouldn’t.
People always said you forgot a dead loved one’s voice eventually. Lachlan could never forget his father’s.
Everything you touch.
“That’s what I thought.” Deli jerked her arm from his hold, then gasped, “Mom!”
Lachlan spun around. Laurie leaned in the crooked doorway of Hannah’s home—lemonade in hand, watching the two of them with calculating eyes.
“Delilah, did you bring me here to do all the work while you do whatever”—she waved her hand at the two of them—“this is?”
“I’m coming right now,” Deli said, and she pushed past Lachlan.
“Delightful.” Laurie ran a finger along the rim of her glass as Deli moved past her into the house without looking back. For a long, uncomfortable moment, Laurie watched Lachlan pine after her daughter.
“You remind me of someone,” she said at last.
He was suddenly very tired, all the fight drained from his bones. “Someone good?”
She shook her head. “Someone dead.”