Twenty-Eight
An hour later, after a short search, Lachlan found Rowena in his room. In their room. He was smiling as he leaned his shoulder into the door frame, Tasmin’s teenage outrage at her inability to master the bagpipes in one afternoon still making him want to laugh out loud.
His smile didn’t last as he took in Colin, who’d been turned to face the wall, then the two open suitcases on the bed. Beside them, piles of clothes, pairs of shoes and a tangle of coat hangers were strewn across the coverlet.
What the fuck?
The thump of his heart was like cannon fire through his head as he asked the obvious question. ‘Ro? Are you leaving?’
‘Goddamn it, Lachlan,’ she snapped, looking up from folding a piece of clothing. ‘It’s Rowena.’
Her green eyes blazed at him and Lachlan almost took a step back. An entire cauldron of emotion bubbled in her gaze.
Whoa.
He wasn’t sure what was happening right now but he didn’t think it had anything to do with her name. His eyebrows beetling, Lachlan stepped into the room and shut the door.
‘Are you leaving?’ he repeated, his voice calm despite the sudden squall of emotions lashing his insides.
‘I’m staying at The Stockman,’ she said, her movements jerky as she picked up a shirt from a mound of clothes. ‘I’ll be there for two days before I head back to Sydney.’
Lachlan stared at her, trying to figure out what had gone wrong between her laughing with his cousin on the grass and now. She was leaving town? With two weeks left on her contract?
Unless … Oh god. Was something wrong with the baby?
He took two steps towards her, alarm slicking a chill through his blood. ‘Is everything okay with the—’
‘She’s fine.’ Rowena’s assurance was instant, her gaze quickly seeking his, the blaze in her eyes extinguished. ‘It’s not that.’
The blast of relief Lachlan felt almost cut him off at the knees and he sank onto a corner of the bed. Raking his fingers through his hair, he took a moment to compose himself. To order his thoughts. To try and think about this rationally not emotionally.
Because if everything was okay with the baby and everything had seemed to be going well at Blairgowrie, why was she packing her bags?
‘Okay, so …’ He glanced at her. ‘What is it?’
‘Did you know your family are taking bets on when you’re going to propose?’
A spike of alarm drove Lachlan to his feet. ‘What?’
Sure, there’d been a lot of hints and innuendo this past couple of weeks. But they’d been teasing and good-hearted.
‘They’re running a pool. Lisa has Christmas Day if you want to do her a solid.’
She tossed in that morsel of information with a deceptive kind of calm but he knew her well enough to pick up on the brittle edge to her words.
Well … crap.
Okay, clearly his family had gotten a little carried away. He supposed with the emotion of Reggie’s passing and the excitement of a new baby that wasn’t surprising. But it was okay—he could fix it.
Because marriage had been the last thing on his mind.
Not when there was still so much undecided between them.
When Rowena was returning to Sydney and he wasn’t sure of his place in his baby’s life, let alone hers.
And if two failed marriages had taught him anything, it was the importance of being sure.
‘Didn’t you tell them I was leaving soon?’
Lachlan shook his head. ‘It’s not really come up.’
‘Maybe it should have,’ she snapped as she put those fancy city-girl boots he’d come to love in her bag.
‘Oh, you think, huh?’
He couldn’t stop the sarcasm dripping from his voice, but watching her separate from him felt like ants marching under his skin and he wanted to tear his flesh from his bones just to make it stop.
His heart already felt like a beaten, bloodied, bruised pulp from the constant replay of that day with Reggie—he didn’t need fucking ants under his skin.
‘I’m sorry I was a little preoccupied with Reggie’s death and all that entailed to explain the state of our relationship to my family.’
Although, if he was being one hundred per cent honest, the fact that they’d assumed certain things and embraced Rowena so openly had been a balm to his battered heart.
‘I’m not going to propose,’ he assured quietly, his irritation burning out as quickly as it had flared.
But if he thought his words would make some kind of difference, he was wrong, as she shut and zipped one bag and started putting clothes in the other.
Clearly, she’d not been assured by his denial.
‘We agreed on reassessing after a month.’
A tightness in his chest drove him a step closer. She was near enough to touch now and he placed a hand on her packing arm, which thankfully dropped to her side. ‘Yes, but you’re supposed to be here for another two weeks.’
Her body swayed a little towards him and Lachlan wanted nothing more than to draw her close. She shut her eyes briefly as if fighting the pull that, despite everything, was still insanely strong.
‘People are getting way too invested in … this,’ she murmured, her voice husky.
‘Does that include you?’
Was that what this was about? Was she running scared because she was starting to get invested in this? His damn fool banged-up heart did a little shimmy.
‘I have to go back to the NICU.’
She straightened and reached for another item of clothing. The fact she’d avoided the question was not lost on Lachlan, and his heart started to spin like a disco ball in his chest.
‘I’m not stopping you.’ He held his hands up in a surrender motion. ‘I’m only asking you to stay until you originally planned. My family will be gone soon and I want to spend some alone time with you before you leave for Sydney.’
Having everyone around had been good, but was it too selfish of him to want to have her to himself before she left?
‘I’m sorry.’ She shook her head. ‘I know it’s shitty timing. But I think it’s best if I go now.’
Every cell in Lachlan’s body screamed at him to do something. To make her stay. But he knew he couldn’t force her. He could only appeal to that part in her that he sensed didn’t want to go, so he simply said, ‘Please.’
Her throat bobbed and she took a beat before turning those green eyes on him again. ‘It’s only two weeks, Lachlan. What does it matter?’
Afterwards, Lachlan wasn’t sure where the rage came from. One second, he was being calm and reasonable, the next there was a red mist. Her careless dismissal of how badly he wanted to spend time with her mixed with his still very raw grief, coalescing into a mushroom cloud of pissed off.
‘What does it matter?’ He gaped at her incredulously. ‘It’s only two weeks? Two weeks of laughing and loving and getting to feel your tummy any time I want? Watch your body change? Two weeks of feeling my baby kick?’
The air in Lachlan’s lungs burned hot, like the steam rising from a geyser. Everything about this separation was going to suck but thinking about what he’d miss where the baby was concerned was an extra kick in the teeth.
‘The last two weeks we get to have together before you take off for Sydney and then I don’t know what the hell happens after that?’
Lachlan had been trying to be okay about the uncertainty, and he was okay for the most part, but damn it all, could she not see it was a big ask?
‘I’m trying really hard with this, Rowena.
’ The emphasis was petty but he had a full head of steam going on.
‘Because I understand you have to go back to Sydney and do what you need to do but please, for the love of all that is holy, try and remember that I have feelings too.’ He shoved a hand through his hair. ‘I’m in love with you, god damn it.’
His admission was out before his brain could catch up, dropping like a stone into the deep, bottomless crevice that suddenly opened between them.
Rowena paled before his eyes and went very, very still, pausing mid-fold. ‘What?’
Well … crap. He hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that. In fact, until this moment he hadn’t fully realised that was how he felt. But it blossomed in his chest now, real and fresh and so fucking obvious his disco ball heart threw mirrored rainbows around the inside of his chest.
And now it was out there, he wasn’t taking it back. He fucking loved her.
Game over. The end.
Huffing out an enormous sigh, Lachlan let go of all his anger and animus, locking eyes with her. ‘I said I love you.’
She still hadn’t moved. She just stood there with a shirt in her hand, blinking rapidly, and Lachlan started to wonder if he’d broken her. It was a relief when she finally gathered herself enough to speak.
‘Don’t say that,’ she whispered.
Lachlan blew out a steady breath at her rejection. He knew he’d shocked her—hell, he’d shocked himself. But he wasn’t going to let her talk him out of something that glowed inside him brighter and brighter with each passing second.
‘I can’t not.’ He shrugged. ‘I love you.’
It was her turn for the red mist then. Dropping the shirt in her hand, she stalked away from him, putting as much space between them as the room would allow.
‘Are you kidding me?’ Ragged breathing agitated her lungs and flared her nostrils. ‘Don’t say that to me. How … dare you say that to me now!’
Lachlan cringed. She was right—confessing his love for the first time as Rowena walked out of his life was a supremely idiotic thing to do.
How was she supposed to know it was genuine and not some ploy to manipulate her into staying?
A desperate move to get what he wanted. A cowardly attempt at emotional blackmail.
Good one, dickhead.
If he could have kicked his own arse, he would have. But it was out there now so he was going to have to back it the fuck up.
‘You ask me why I can’t stay?’ she demanded. ‘It’s because of this. You love me? Since when, Lachlan?’
He knew exactly when. He might have only known he was in love with her for a few minutes but now he’d caught up, he could pinpoint the exact moment.
‘It was when you told me you broke the window that day at the roadside. I never realised I had such a competence kink until I saw you there in the dirt saving a stranger’s life.’
She stared at him as if she was back at that moment too. But not for long. ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘This is about the baby.’
Her words pulled him up short. What the fuck? ‘No.’ He crossed to her then, his hands sliding to her arms. ‘This is not about the baby.’
She nodded vigorously. ‘Yes. You love the baby, you’re worried that I’m going to shut you out or something. But I won’t, Lachy, I promise. I just need some—’
‘No,’ he denied again, his voice steely.
Lachlan accepted that he’d screwed up with his declaration. But he wasn’t going to accept her attempts to conflate his feelings for her with his feelings for the baby. He couldn’t let that stand.
Were they entwined? Of course. But they were also very different and very separate.
He opened his mouth and quickly shut it again when he realised he was about to say I love you baby or no baby. That wasn’t something he could say to Rowena without potentially triggering a whole lot of stuff.
Instead he said, ‘This is about you. Only you. I love you. Rowena Murray. And I’m really sorry about the timing. It was monumentally stupid to blurt it out now. But it has nothing to do with the baby. I love our baby in that magical way that just is. But I’ve fallen in love with you.’
The conflict and torment in her eyes almost broke his heart, and for a moment he thought she was going to cry. She didn’t, though, she just shook off his hands and stalked back to her packing.
‘I can’t think about this now,’ she muttered, sounding thoroughly miserable. ‘I have to go.’
Realising he’d erred badly, Lachlan knew it was time to retreat. It killed him, but the only way to salvage anything from this mess was to let her go and do what she needed to do.
It was a devastating moment. On top of his recent loss it felt like his insides were being scooped out. But he had to think strategically. Early on he’d made up his mind to be the easy part in amongst all the hard parts for her, and this was another of those moments.
Rowena was running scared. She needed time and space. She’d asked for a month—one lousy month in the grand scheme of the rest of their lives—and he could give her that.
Swallowing against what felt like an entire packet of razor blades, he straightened and said, ‘I’ll get your Mini out of the shed.’
*
Standing shoulder to shoulder with Albert half an hour later, Lachlan watched her drive away. It was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do, and there’d been a few of those the past month.
‘Sometimes a person has to go away before they can come back,’ Albert said.
Lachlan knew he was right. He’d done the same thing, hadn’t he? Left Blairgowrie only to return.
‘She’ll be back,’ Albert predicted, his voice quiet and sure.
Lachlan heaved in a deep breath, hoping Albert was right, as her car disappeared in a plume of dust.