Chapter 22 #2
“I’m just going to toss him in the hole and bury him alive.
” Oh my god, what a miserable way to die.
I’d once read an article about a woman surviving after being buried for over a week, though those cases were rare, but still.
Would Richard still be alive a few days from now, slowly running out of air until his body completely gave out from lack of oxygen? I’d prefer the woodchipper.
“Unless you’d like me to make his death quicker? Though, I do want to make him suffer for what he did. He almost took you from me, sweetheart, and for that, he deserves nothing less than hell.” He ran his thumb over my knuckles, holding my gaze.
So much had happened in such a short time, I wasn’t sure what was real or fake anymore.
I knew I wanted Lachaln, and he had clearly made it known that he shared similar feelings, but was this just his possessive, crazy, murdery side coming out, or did he actually want me?
I guessed I’d find out as soon as this was over.
“Do it,” I finally said, and we got out of the side by side together before Lachlan grabbed Richard's flailing body and carried him over to the hole. He was screaming, shouting about how he didn’t want to die and how he’d do anything to make it up to us.
Men were always so cocky until they faced losing at their own game.
Lachlan didn’t wait a moment longer. He tossed him into the hole, and Richard thudded at the bottom on a gasp, his face turning bright red as he lay there heaving, trying to catch his breath.
That fall had definitely knocked the air out of his lungs and he probably had a broken bone or two.
Anticipation was writhing under my skin, not only because Lachlan and I were killing a man, but because once this was over, there weren't any more distractions. I’d have to face what came next, and that was almost as terrifying as murder.
Lachlan moved to the excavator and didn’t waste any time as he started slow, only digging a little lump of dirt and filling the hole slowly starting from Richards feet, until it got closer to his head.
Richard was crying. I couldn’t understand his mumbling, and then it was muffled by the dirt Lachlan was releasing in giant heaps now.
Within ten minutes, the hole was covered and he was pounding it with a compactor. The beat of it matched my heart.
The next morning, the silence in the house felt heavier. The air was sticky with leftover adrenaline and the smell of coffee. The police hadn’t shown up about Richard yet, but when and if they did, Lachlan would have everything he needed to make them look the other way.
Lachlan turned toward me, and for a second, I forgot how to breathe. His shirt was half undone, his hair messy. He still looked untouchable. Dangerous. Mine. No . . . he wasn’t that.
I didn’t know what to do with my hands, so I did something stupid. I held one out to him like an idiot, a nervous peace offering. He glanced down at it then up at me, one brow arched like he was waiting for me to do a trick.
“Logan, what are you doing?” His voice was low.
I laughed, but it sounded brittle and forced. “Well, it’s the end of the season, right? We successfully accomplished what we set out to do. I just figured this was the part where we . . . you know, said our goodbyes. You don’t have to pretend anymore.”
His expression changed instantly, confusion at first then something that looked a lot like anger. His jaw ticked. His eyes darkened as he stared me down like I’d just stabbed him.
“Pretending?” he repeated, like the word itself offended him.
The air in the room seemed to tighten like a held spring.
“You think I was playing pretend when I fisted my cock to thoughts of you every night from the moment I saw you on my property?”
My pulse jumped. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.
He stepped closer, and I swore my heart forgot what rhythm was. “You think I was pretending when I killed that man for touching you in the alley?”
My breath caught. God, I wanted to look away, to stop the spinning in my chest, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t not look at him. His hand shot out, tugging me closer, so close my chest pressed against his stomach and I could feel the tremor in his heavy breathing.
“You think I was pretending when my head was between your pretty thighs? Or when I was buried inside you?” His voice dropped, rough and graveled, and my body betrayed me, heat flaring everywhere and my heartbeat started pounding between my legs.
He cupped my face in one calloused hand, the pad of his thumb dragging along my bottom lip. My pulse roared in my ears, drowning out everything but him.
I wanted to say something, anything, but I kept taking the words from him like they were my link to life.
“You think I was pretending,” he murmured, voice shaking now, “when I buried the man who tried to kill you?”
Tears burned at the edges of my eyes. Was this real? Would I truly get to call him mine?
“Answer me, Logan. Do you truly believe a man playing a game would do these things?”
I tried to speak, but nothing came. The lump in my throat was growing by the second. My head just shook, like I was helpless to the emotions clawing through me. He pressed his forehead to mine, exhaling a ragged breath that trembled against my lips.
“Do you think I’m pretending,” he whispered, “when I tell you I’ve never been more in love with a woman in my life?”
And just like that, all the fear, doubt, every carefully built wall I’d tried and failed to put between me and my heart—it all shattered. I felt the tears spill over right as his mouth claimed mine, and I kissed him back like he was the only real thing left in the world.
It wasn’t soft. It was heat and teeth and all the words we hadn’t said crashing together between us. My body moved on instinct, fingers gripping his shirt, pulling him closer. I needed more, needed him. He tasted like rain and pines and something I couldn’t name but knew I’d never get enough of.
When he deepened the kiss, the world narrowed to the press of his lips, the roughness of his stubble scraping my skin with every slow, languid motion of his lips and tongue against mine, the sound of his breath mingling with mine.
My knees nearly gave out. Everything inside me felt like it was unraveling.
When he finally pulled back, he rested his forehead against mine, and for a moment neither of us spoke. We just breathed the same air, our lips still trembling from everything that had just split open between us.
Lachlan broke the silence.
“I wanted to do this on Christmas and make it special, but then the fire happened and I wasn’t able to,” he started, pulling back a little and dropping to a knee in front of me.
Oh my god, this couldn’t be happening. “But now, I don’t want you to ever think that anything I do with you is a game, Logan, because you are everything to me.
” He pulled a box that looked like a little gift from his pocket and opened it, but my eyes never strayed from his face.
“Logan Roark, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?”
“Yes, yes, yes.” The words tumbled out of me before I even knew I was saying them.
I threw myself at him, tackling him in the clumsiest, most graceless way, and kissed whatever part of him I could reach: his smile, his cheek, the rough edge of his jaw, the warm skin of his neck.
My tears were everywhere, mixing with my laughter, and I didn’t even care.
“I love you, Lachlan,” I cried into the crook of his neck.
He caught me against his chest and held me so tightly, I could feel his heartbeat thundering against my ear. For a long moment, neither of us moved. The world could’ve fallen apart outside those walls and I wouldn’t have noticed. But slowly, our breathing began to steady.
We stumbled, clung, tripped over laughter and tears, and collapsed in a heap on the couch together.
Every time I tried to stop touching him, my hand found its way back—to his chest, his jaw, his hair.
It felt like if I let go, he might disappear, like he was some fever dream I’d wake from if I blinked.
“I have another surprise,” he said, and I narrowed my eyes at him, still tangled in his lap. Tony jumped up on the couch with us, his tail wagging like he couldn’t contain his excitement either.
“We said no surprises,” I warned, though there was no real bite in my voice. My heart was already too full. He was the greatest gift I ever could have gotten. But Lachlan just chuckled, that deep, rumbling sound that always made me melt, and reached toward the side table by the couch.
He opened the drawer, pulled out an envelope, and handed it to me.
“What’s this?” I asked, suspicious but smiling.
“Open it,” he said with that infuriatingly calm confidence that always did things to me. But everything this man did, did things to me.
Inside was a small packet of papers, and they were official looking. My name jumped out first, then his, and then the words Half Ownership of Evergreen Haven Christmas Tree Farm.
My breath caught. “What? Lachlan . . . when did you do this?”
He leaned back, watching me with that same steady gaze that had undone me a thousand times before.
“Before the festival. After spending time with you, meeting your parents, I knew I never wanted to live another day without you. So I made you half owner of the farm. Without you, this place wouldn’t have survived. ”
Tears blurred the page until the words swam. My throat burned as I tried to speak. “Lachlan, you didn’t have to do this.”
“I wanted to,” he said simply, as if it were the easiest truth in the world. “And it would happen regardless now that you’ll be my wife.”
The way he said my wife—rough, possessive, reverent all at once—made something inside me snap.
My heart, my restraint, whatever fragile control I had left.
I straddled him, my fingers gripping his shirt like I could somehow pull him closer, and kissed him again and again and again.
Each one felt like a promise, a prayer, a desperate confirmation that this was real.
He was mine.
“I love you,” I whispered against his lips.
He smiled that small, dangerous, heart-breaking smile and whispered back, “I love you, Logan.”