Chapter 74 Lachlan
Lachlan
The last time Lachlan Scott had stood up for a woman he loved, it ended in shards of glass splintering his mother’s hands and her resentment splintering his heart.
In so many small ways he’d sacrificed something precious to preserve peace and called it noble. Blair’s dignity, his passion, his family’s self-respect—all dead on an altar to civility while Lachlan put up no fight at all. He’d been a cowering boy, calling himself a man.
When Rosemary and Lorraine came to Fearnhall, it was like missing pieces had arrived to a complicated puzzle.
They all fit together—noses, nailbeds, voices overlapping—yet they were entirely different.
Lachlan had come to understand that the choices the four had made, spread over decades, had a clear pattern.
Two were led by courage. Two were dominated by fear.
Those women stood over Deli and Mo, mocking them in his home.
He let his brother lead her away.
His brother, who fled their family as soon as he could and left Lachlan behind to cope.
It didn’t matter that their mother was sick.
It didn’t matter that their town was crumbling.
William had no sense of duty or integrity.
He was charming to your face and then turned selfish .
. . a man who used people for his own end.
It was why he’d tried to keep William from finding her, that first night he’d come home.
Deli wouldn’t be safe if William knew she was someone Lachlan loved.
But Lachlan had failed to keep her safe. And he’d been so ashamed, he hadn’t even found the words to explain.
When he’d watched his brother take her by the hand, he’d said nothing. Again.
Then the phone rang. Lachlan couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and Mo began to chase her sister into his mother’s garden, where he’d left Deli to his brother, and he knew it might already be too late.
You break everything you touch.
Perhaps if he’d been less of a coward at any one of the many chances he’d had in his life, none of what he knew was about to happen would have ever happened. Perhaps if he’d been braver sooner, no one would have gotten hurt.
As he abandoned the bar where his father died, pushing through the door to what had once been his mother’s sanctuary, Lachlan Scott made a choice.
Even if it was far too late, he would still change.
He would choose the people he loved—damn peace and damn the fear.
No matter the cost, Lachlan would never be a coward again.