Chapter 20
20
Lachlan
“If you don’t stop looking at me like that, I’m going to smother you.”
I blink when I notice Key is scowling at me from across the table, realizing I’d been staring at the bandage that is just barely peeking out from the hem of my shirt she’s wearing. Honestly, just the sight of her in my clothes would be enough to have me staring—but I can’t pretend that I’m not still internally wincing at the thought of hurting her, even when she insists she’s fine.
“I should have been more careful,” I grumble, taking a sip from my coffee mug.
She waggles her eyebrows as she says, “I like you not being careful, actually.”
“Keyanna MacKay,” I say with a chuckle. “Are you flirting with me?”
“I’m wearing your shirt and no underwear,” she scoffs. “I think the time for flirting has passed.”
“Don’t remind me,” I groan. “I have things to do today that don’t involve taking you back to bed.”
She blinks prettily back at me. “Are you sure?”
“Devil woman,” I mutter, finishing my cup.
It’s strange—or rather, it’s strange how not strange it is—Key in my space. Her looking at me like she’s thinking about me touching her again rather than with vague annoyance. I rather like it, truth be told.
“Has it ever happened before?”
I cock my head. “What?”
“Have you ever lost control like that?”
“No.” I shake my head fervently. “Never. I’m usually very…careful.”
Her grin is wide, and truthfully, rather smug. “So it’s just me, then.”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” I scoff, echoing her words from earlier.
“Oh, it’s far too late for that.” She giggles prettily, stretching her arms over her head in an enticing move. “So what is on the agenda for today?”
I set my cup on the table, leaning back in my chair. “Feed the cows, for one.”
“Ugh.” She shudders, making a face. “Pass.”
“What happened to you being a dutiful wee farmhand for your granny?”
“I have you for that now,” she says sweetly.
“Oh, do you now?” I arch a brow at her. “One romp, and you think I’ll be at your beck and call?”
“I think I could persuade you to relieve me of any cow-related duties.”
I snort, shaking my head. “They’re basically giant puppies. They wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“You said they might bite!”
“Aye, but that’s because you were being vexing.”
She narrows her eyes. “Ass. Okay, fine. I’ll help…from a distance.”
I watch as she takes another sip from her mug, drawn to the way her lips shape against the rim and remembering how soft they felt against mine. Which only makes my thoughts tumble down the memories of how she felt against me, how hot she was inside, how fucking desperate I am to touch her again, wondering how soon I can drag her back to my bed.
How on earth did I ever think I didn’t like this woman?
I might be a wee bit obsessed with her, actually. Not even sure when or how it happened.
“So what else?”
I’ve apparently zoned out again, blinking back stupidly as she regards me. “Hm?”
“Lachlan Greer,” she says sweetly. “Are you distracted?”
“Immensely,” I answer, seeing no reason to lie.
Either her laugh is starting to sound attractive—or I really am going mental.
“I have to help Blair and Rory start setting up for the games later,” I tell her distractedly, getting up from the table with the intention of stashing my mug in the sink.
She perks up. “Games?”
“They didn’t tell you?”
“I’ve been in the pub like three times,” she points out.
“Right, right,” I answer, rinsing out my cup. “They have a festival of sorts every year on the anniversary of the pub’s opening.” I spread my hands out in the air for a bit of flourish. “The Greerloch Highland Games. They model it around the legend where it got its name.”
“The one about the gnome and the giant’s daughter?”
“Aye. They have all sorts of competitions, but mostly just a lot of folks getting steamin’. It’s happening this weekend.”
“Are you going to the games?”
“No.” I snort. “I’ve got better things to do with my time than toss logs around and jump through tires.”
“Okay, but that sounds fun actually.”
I don’t like the look in her eyes. “No.”
“Could be a good idea,” she presses. “Lots of people there, I imagine. Give us an excuse to chat folks up about our family histories.”
I cross the distance from the counter to the table, leaning to press my palms to the top of it as I cock an eyebrow at her. “You just expect to waltz up to people and start asking questions?”
“If they’re all as ‘steamin’,’ as you say”—she makes air quotes around the word—“I doubt anyone would suspect anything about some harmless small talk from the weird American.”
“Why does it feel like you’re just trying to trick me into socializing?”
“Because,” she says with a grin, reaching to trace a finger across the back of my knuckles, “you’re kind of a grumpy asshole, and it would do you some good.”
I turn her chair to face me as I drop down to crouch between her legs, giving in to the urge to touch her again as I palm the outside of her thighs. “Is that right?”
“Mhm.” Her knees part ever so slightly, and I can hear the way her breath has quickened. “I think so.”
“I could think of several things that I would rather be doing than socializing,” I tell her.
Her smile is coy. “Why put off for tomorrow what you can do today? Or right fucking now, actually.”
“Now you’re making sense,” I hum, turning my face to press a kiss to the inside of her knee. “Scoot up a wee bit, and I’d be happy to oblige.”
The way she rushes to do as I’ve asked would make me want to tease her any other time, but when she parts her legs, I seem to forget what words are.
“I thought you had to feed the cows,” she says breathily as I grasp her by the knees and throw them over my shoulders.
She gasps when my tongue first swipes between the already-slick folds of her cunt, and I shudder at her taste. “After you feed me, I think.”
Her groan could be from the bad joke or my touch.
I quickly become too distracted to ask.
Three hours later, I find myself surrounded by dozens of people in the field behind The Clever Pech, watching Key chat with Rory a few meters away from where I’ve been stacking old whiskey barrels. She did end up helping me feed the cows—although I suspect what I did to her in my kitchen may have made it hard for her to say no—and since she did not, in fact, get mauled by one of the overgrown hairy puppies, she seems up to doing it again. Maybe.
And what’s stranger than that is that I want her to do it again. I want her to help me every day. Hell, I just want her around. I wonder all over again how my attitude toward the smart-mouthed, beautiful redhead could have done such a one-eighty so quickly.
“If you keep staring at her like that, you’re likely to burn a hole in her face.”
I shoot a glare at Blair’s smirking face, dropping the barrel I had definitely just been standing there holding and trying not to look guilty. “Don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, I think you do,” she laughs. “I know a moonstruck numpty when I see one.” She elbows me in the side. “What exactly happened at Greer castle, eh?”
I grunt, picking up another barrel and moving it to the end of the line where the obstacle course is going up. “Don’t you have other people to bother?”
“But you’re my favorite person to bother,” she says sweetly, fluttering her eyelashes.
“I’ll have to let Molly know she’s been replaced.”
Blair narrows her eyes before turning her head to gaze at the daughter of the feed shop owner with interest, watching Molly tie a ribbon between two trees to mark a finish line.
“Still haven’t puzzled whether or not she’d let me toss her around a bit,” Blair muses.
I shake my head. “You really are no better than a man.”
“Don’t be sexist,” she tuts. “And stop trying to distract me. You’ve been making goo-goo eyes at Keyanna since the two of you showed up here. Together , I might add. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”
“We do live in the same place,” I point out.
Blair stares at me with open disdain for several seconds, finally blowing out an exasperated breath. “All right, then. Keep your secrets.”
“You expecting a big turnout this year?” I ask, changing the subject.
She bobs her head. “Oh, aye, aye. Isla says her boys are coming in from uni.”
“More twins?” I make a face. “Just what we need.”
“They’re big and strapping and can throw the tires around. They’ll make for good eye candy.”
I frown at that, sneaking a glance at Key. Isla’s boys aren’t that much younger than her. I wonder…I shake my head. I’m enough of a beast without working myself into a tizzy about fictional situations regarding the woman I’ve slept with once .
Even if I’m desperate to do it again.
“I saw that,” Blair teases.
I turn away from her. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Maybe I should ask Key to play the prize this year, eh?”
I turn on my heel, narrowing my eyes. “What are you on about?”
“Ha!” She points at me as if she’s made some great discovery. “Didn’t like that, did you?”
“You’re a horrible, horrible friend,” I grouse.
She blows me a kiss, looking too smug for my tastes. “I’m an excellent friend. In fact, let me show you.” She cups her hand over her mouth, shouting before I have a chance to stop her. “Oi! Keyanna!”
I watch as Key turns our way, seeing Blair waving her over and immediately excusing herself from Rory and his task of setting out folding chairs to make her way toward us.
“Yeah?”
“Key, darling,” Blair coos. “Has Lachlan told you about the prize for the games?”
Key’s face scrunches. “No?”
“Och, well. I told you the story of how the pub got its name, aye? The maiden and the pech?”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Well, you see, every year we have a maiden pose as the ‘prize,’ and the winner of the games wins a kiss from her.”
Key cocks her head. “That doesn’t seem very in line with the story.”
“Yeah, well.” Blair shrugs. “It gives the gents motivation to work hard, which gets ’em good and thirsty, which means more beer sales for me, aye?”
“I don’t think I’m going to like where this is going,” Key says.
I cross my arms over my chest, glaring at my friend. “She doesn’t need to be ogled for an entire day, Blair.”
“Nonsense,” Blair hums, reaching to pet Key’s hair as if she were a kitten she was trying to persuade to come home with her. “Key wants to help.” Blair gives Key her best pout, and I have to stifle a groan at her shady tactics. “Don’t you?”
“Oh, well…” Key gives her a wry smile. “I guess if it will help…”
“That’s the spirit!” Blair clasps her on the shoulder, winking at me in triumph. “Everyone will be thrilled to hear it.”
Rory calls her name then, and I continue to glare at her as she flounces away, not realizing I’m doing so until Key pokes me in the side.
“Stop making that face,” she says. “It’ll get stuck that way.”
“You didn’t have to agree to her shenanigans,” I tell her.
She shrugs. “What can it hurt? Doesn’t sound like I’ll have to do much.”
“You’ll have to kiss whichever lout wins the games!”
Her grin is Cheshire-like. “Are you jealous, Lachlan?”
“I…” My lips press together as I clear my throat. “No.”
Key’s fingers trail up my forearm, leaving goose bumps behind that I suspect have nothing to do with the chill in the air. “Maybe you should enter. Just to make sure no one else gets the chance.”
“Is that right?” I loom over her, feeling my lips twitch. “Remind me…” I reach to pluck at a stray curl, twirling it around my finger. “Whose bed were you in this morning?”
Her eyes widen, her pupils dilating slightly, and she opens her pretty pink mouth, only to snap it shut, turning her face toward the sound of an approaching vehicle coming from around the front of the pub.
“That’s my grandparents,” she notes.
I glance over my shoulder. “Aye, Finlay will be bringing the hay bales, then.”
“Hay bales?”
“For the obstacle course.”
She smiles again, her wee bunny teeth on full display, and I feel a squeezing sensation in my chest. She’s as adorable as she is desirable, and it seems that the combination is a surefire way to leave me dizzy.
“Yeah,” she chuckles. “I think I am going to have to insist you enter these games.”
“Only because you’d like me to win you, aye?”
Her emerald eyes dance with humor as she lifts one shoulder casually. “Guess you’ll have to enter and see, hm?”
I’m cursing the way the sun is already high in the sky—knowing there aren’t enough hours left in the day to drag her back to my place and remind her who had her screaming only this morning. Maybe spank her pretty arse for being such a tease.
But Finlay’s hand clapping my back quickly yanks me out of thoughts of defiling his granddaughter.
“All right, Lachlan?”
I give the smaller man a thin smile. I like Finlay, and I’m pretty sure he’s a genuinely decent person, but he’s still a MacKay. Trusting him doesn’t feel natural.
I blanch at the thought.
So why does trusting Keyanna come second nature?
“All right,” I tell him, pushing away the thought. I nod toward Hamish and Malcolm, who are climbing out of the large truck attached to Malcolm’s trailer. “I see you managed to put those two to work.”
“Oh, aye, aye,” Finlay laughs. “Had to drag Hamish away from the herd for a day.” He eyes Key standing beside me, moving in close to throw his arms around her. He’s so much shorter than her that they land practically around her middle. “And how’s my favorite granddaughter this afternoon?”
“I’m your only granddaughter,” she reminds him with a laugh.
“Och, we don’t know that,” he says. “I was quite the catch back in my day. Who knows whether or not I—”
He jolts when Rhona’s hand smacks him on the back of his head. “Quit your yapping.” She clucks her tongue. “Honestly.” She regards Key, her gaze much warmer than it has been in the past. “All right, Keyanna?”
“I’m good,” Key answers with a shy sort of smile.
I’ve gathered that their relationship is still a bit strained, but I can tell the auld gal is making strides to get to know her granddaughter. I can also tell that it seems to bring Key a good deal of peace.
“Key,” Finlay says. “Come and meet Malcolm, aye? His father and I were mates back in school.” He winds his arm through hers, tugging her along. “Now, don’t listen to a word he says about me.”
Key flashes me a small smile before she lets herself be dragged away, leaving me half pining after her and trying my best not to let it show. Apparently, I don’t do a very good job.
“Don’t hurt her,” Rhona says beside me, making me startle a bit.
“What?”
Rhona’s gaze is assessing and almost cold, looking as if she trusts me as much as I do her. Which is to say not as much as I could. “You heard me. Be good to her.”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“Och. Save it.” She waves me off. “I’m too auld and too tired for games. You just be good to my granddaughter, and everything will be just fine, aye?”
“I…” I shut my mouth at the look in her eye, giving her a stiff nod. “Aye.”
She offers me a curt nod in return. “Good. Then that’s all settled.”
“Rhona,” a new voice says from behind us. “Where do I take these pies?”
I can’t pin what it is about Brodie MacKay that makes my mouth turn down in a frown anytime he’s near; sure, we’ve never really got on, but before coming back here, I hadn’t seen the man in nary a decade, and yet still he acts like I kicked his puppy every time we’re in the same room together. Even when we were kids, and I would try to include him, he’d always acted like he was just a bit better than everyone else. I remember his father being funny, if not a wee bit too loud at times—but Brodie has always been the opposite. Always quiet, always out of the way. Maybe that’s why we never clicked.
Brodie notices me watching him, his face cool and expressionless as he tips up his chin. “Lachlan.”
“Brodie,” I offer back.
“You can take the pies to the fridge in the back of the pub,” Rhona tells him. “Just make sure to hide them under the heads of lettuce so Fergus doesn’t get into them before this weekend.”
He nods at his aunt, eyeing me again for another moment before stalking off toward the pub. I see him stop to say hello to Finlay and Key, and Key smiling brightly at her cousin makes my stomach twist. Not in any sort of misguided jealous way, because I’m all too aware that they’re family—but there’s something about seeing them together that still doesn’t sit right with me. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t hide the fact that he doesn’t care for me. Maybe it’s just that my mistrust of her family and their threat to my future seems to extend to Key now as well. Which, I’m more than aware, makes no sense, because they are her family.
It seems Keyanna MacKay is the exception to all of my rules.
Rhona barks something at Blair from across the field and stalks off toward her, seeming to have forgotten that she was threatening me. I find myself standing by Malcolm’s truck, catching Key’s eye as Malcolm and Finlay guffaw over something one of them has just said. I nod toward the other side of the building once before turning and walking that way, not checking to see if she’s following.
This side of the pub faces the woods, nothing back here as I lean against the wall, waiting. It doesn’t take her more than a minute to round the corner, and I take her by surprise by throwing my arms around her waist and pulling her against me.
“Someone could see us,” she laughs.
I’m distracted by her mouth, but I manage, “Let them.”
“Wow, we have sex one time and suddenly you’re going all caveman on me.”
I arch a brow. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant—”
Her hand over my mouth followed by her wide grin gives me pause.
“I’m kidding,” she says. She pulls her hand away, pressing a kiss to my mouth, which immediately makes me lean in to taste more of her. “I kind of like the idea of you going all caveman.”
“That so?”
I hoist her up a wee bit higher by the waist, forcing her up on her toes as I cover my mouth with hers. I take all I can as quickly as I can, trying to memorize the feel and taste of her before I’m forced to leave her for the night.
My lips linger for another second before I pull away, letting my head thump back against the wall. “Things seem to be going better with your family.”
“I think so,” she says with a small quirk of her lips. “Things have been…a lot easier recently.”
“Seems even your dear cousin has brought you around.”
She barks out a laugh. “What did Brodie ever do to you?”
“Nothing.” I sniff indignantly. “Just don’t trust him is all.”
“You know he works for the historical society,” she tells me. “He could probably be a real help. I actually asked him about your family records.” She frowns then. “You didn’t tell me they were lost in a fire.”
“I did tell you they’d been lost,” I remind her.
“But I didn’t know that they literally burnt up!”
“Does it matter how they went? They’re gone. That’s all that matters.”
“But maybe Brodie could—”
“I don’t want his help,” I say firmly, more firmly than I intend to.
She presses her palms to my chest, her brow knitting. “I don’t think you have the luxury of being stubborn. We don’t know how much time you have.”
“He’s a MacKay,” I remind her stubbornly.
She lifts one delicate brow, looking almost amused. “So am I, remember?”
And there it is again, the reminder that for all intents and purposes—she’s my enemy. My da would be furious if he knew I was letting her help me. That I was touching her. That I felt so…possessive of her. Key is a MacKay, and that hasn’t changed. It’s just me who seems to have completely disregarded that fact.
“Aye,” I answer quietly. “I remember.”
“Just think about it, okay?”
“I’ll…think about it,” I concede.
She grins, pressing up on her toes to leave another kiss at my mouth. “Good.” She eyes the sun with a wary expression, noticing, just as I have, that it’s begun to sink. “You’d better get out of here.”
“I know,” I sigh.
I tilt my neck until my forehead rests against hers, content to just breathe her in for a second. I know I have to let her go, that it’s much too soon to allow anyone to actually come back here and spot us—too many questions to come with that—but still. I feel…almost at ease here with her. Like for once there’s nothing to worry about in this tiny corner where she’s the sole object of my attention.
“Wait for me in my bed,” I tell her.
I feel her smile. “Yeah?”
“I’ll leave the door unlocked.”
“Well, that’s just not safe. You’ll end up with all kinds of scary things in your place.”
I pull back to give her a wolfish grin. “I’m the scariest thing there is, remember?”
I can hear voices not far from us, and I heave out a sigh as I start to untangle myself from her, hating every second of it. She’s quietly laughing at what I’ve said as my hands fall from her waist, and her hand comes to pat my cheek.
“Sure you are, Nessie. Sure you are.”
She saunters away from me back toward where the others are still working, and it takes every ounce of my restraint not to follow after her like a lost pup. The only thing that stops me is the sinking sun behind me, a physical reminder of all the reasons why I can’t do whatever I want. It feels heavier today, this burden. It presses down on me like a physical weight, and I have a sneaking suspicion I know exactly why that is.
And I think I just watched her walk away from me.