16. Lachlan
LACHLAN
Morning light spills grey and thin over the mountains, filtering through the slanted windows of the room.
Rain washes the glass, blurring the world outside into a watercolor of pine and mist. Chasity sleeps beside me, a warm weight curled into my side, her breath a soft, even puff against my collarbone.
One of her hands is fisted in the worn cotton of my t-shirt, clinging even in sleep.
Her hair, a fan of chestnut silk, spreads across the pillow like she has always been here.
I watch the slow rise and fall of her shoulders, the faint flutter of her eyelids, and a feeling settles in my bones, something quiet and heavy and dangerously close to peace.
This should feel reckless. It should feel temporary. Instead, it just feels right.
The spell breaks when her eyes open. They find mine for a long, still second, a flicker of the night’s warmth in them before the world rushes back in.
She pulls away slowly, the heat of her skin leaves a cold patch on my side.
The room fills with the rustle of sheets and the quiet, frantic energy of someone trying to outrun their own thoughts.
She pulls on my flannel from the floor, her movements jerky and uncertain.
Her face is a battlefield—the ghost of a smile fighting a losing war with a rising tide of panic.
I see the exact moment the guilt hits, a shadow that steals the light from her eyes.
She starts pacing the small space between the bed and the door, fingers worrying the buttons of the shirt.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and cross the room, catching her arm before she wears a path in the floorboards. Her skin is cool, her muscles tight beneath my fingers. She flinches, her gaze skittering away from mine.
“Hey.” I keep my voice low, a quiet anchor in her storm. “Look at me.”
She does, reluctantly. Her eyes are wide, slick with unshed tears.
“Whatever you’re spinning up in that head of yours, stop.
” Her jaw tightens, a muscle jumping beneath the skin.
“Last night was last night. It doesn’t rope you into anything.
It doesn’t make you a bad person, and it doesn’t mean you belong to anyone.
Not Jason. Not this town.” I pause, my thumb brushing over the frantic pulse in her wrist. “Not me.”
The words hang in the air between us, a fragile truce. She gives a small, stiff nod before slipping past me and disappearing down the stairs.
Downstairs, the morning rush is in full swing.
The air is rich with the competing smells of coffee, frying bacon, and damp flannel.
Guests shuffle in and out, their voices a low hum against the clatter of plates.
I move through the chaos on autopilot, pouring coffee and directing tourists toward the trail maps, but my entire awareness is a magnet pulled toward Chasity.
She’s behind the front desk, ostensibly sorting mail, but her movements are still too sharp, too deliberate.
Every time I pass behind her and my arm brushes her back, a jolt goes through me, a current that travels right to my chest. She stills for a moment, a hitch in her breath, but she won’t look at me for more than a heartbeat before her gaze darts away.
The easy banter is gone, replaced by something softer, quieter, and so much more dangerous.
It’s a secret humming between us, and it’s loud enough that Amy, balancing a full tray of mugs, nearly sends them crashing to the floor when she catches one of those fleeting, charged looks.
Then the front door chimes, and Ben walks in. He carries a pink cardboard box from Rosa’s, the scent of fresh cinnamon rolls cutting through the breakfast haze.
“Morning rush looks brutal,” he starts, his voice that familiar, steady rumble. He sets the box on the counter. “Figured you could use reinforcements.”
His eyes land on me, then shift to Chasity standing a little too close beside me.
He sees her wearing my flannel, the one with the frayed cuff.
His gaze traces the line from her flushed cheeks to my tired eyes, and I watch the pieces click into place.
Nothing about his face changes—no scowl, no flash of anger.
But his shoulders, usually so relaxed, pull tight.
A stillness settles over him, a deep, heavy quiet that absorbs the room’s cheerful noise.
He looks between us one last time, the knowledge settling into him not with a bang, but with a slow, crushing weight.
He clears his throat, the sound unnaturally loud in the space between us.
“Enjoy the pastries.” His voice is flat. He turns before either of us can speak, his broad back a wall of unspoken feelings as he retreats into the morning rain.
The soggy cardboard of the pastry box seems to absorb all the warmth from the room.
Chasity stares at it, her hands twisting in the hem of my flannel.
Ben’s truck rumbles away, the sound swallowed by the rain.
The cheerful clatter of the breakfast rush feels miles away, a different world from the small, tense bubble we’re trapped in.
Just as I reach to slide the box out of her line of sight, the door chimes again.
Taven walks in, shaking rain from his jacket.
His gaze sweeps the room, catches the stiff set of Ben’s retreating back through the window, then lands on us.
He clocks the pink box, Chasity’s flushed face, the flannel. He doesn’t miss a thing.
His green eyes narrow for a split second. All the easy sarcasm drains from his expression, replaced by a quiet, calculating stillness. He saunters to the counter, his movements deliberate.
“Coffee, Lachlan. Black.”
His voice is even. Too even. I turn to the machine, the scrape of the portafilter unnaturally loud.
When I turn back, Chasity is trying to make herself busy, wiping down a perfectly clean section of the counter.
I lean in, my mouth close to her ear. “Breathe, Possum Princess.” Her shoulder jumps where my hand rests, and she goes rigid.
Taven’s gaze sharpens, a blade honing in on my hand, then lifting to her wide, panicked eyes.
He takes his coffee without a word, but he doesn’t leave.
He just leans against the far wall, nursing the cup, his presence a silent, intense weight.
Later, when Chasity volunteers to run to the general store for more sugar, Taven pushes off the wall.
"I'll walk with you. Need to grab something for class.
" He falls into step beside her, a solid, unmovable shadow, instinctively putting himself between her and the prying eyes of the town.
By the afternoon, the inn is quiet, the lunch crowd gone. The air is filled with unspoken things, a low hum of anxiety that has followed Chasity all day. I find her behind the bar, helping me restock whiskey bottles. Her hands tremble as she lines them up.
“I’m making everything messy,” she whispers, her voice thick. Her gaze slides from the window to me, full of a guilt so heavy it looks like a physical burden.
I stop what I’m doing and turn to face her, leaning my hip against the bar.
“Hey.” I wait until her watery brown eyes meet mine.
“Human feelings are messy. It’s their natural state.
” I reach out, my fingers brushing a stray strand of hair from her cheek.
“Caring about more than one person doesn’t make you manipulative.
It doesn’t make you selfish.” I let my hand drop, the space between us charged. “It just makes you human.”
Later, as dusk settles deep and blue between the mountains, I stand on the inn’s porch, watching the world go quiet.
The air is fresh, smelling of clean earth and wet pine.
The string lights I hung last fall flicker on, casting a warm, honeyed glow over the wet wood.
A faint metallic scrape draws my eye to the far end of the porch.
Ben is there, on one knee, his toolbox open beside him.
He isn't looking for praise; he just noticed the loose railing and started fixing it, his broad shoulders squared to the task, his movements efficient and sure. He moves like the world can be set right, one tightened screw at a time. It’s for her, I know.
Everything he does around this place is for her.
Just as that thought lands, a familiar, easy laughter drifts up the path from town.
Taven and Chasity emerge from the deepening shadows, walking side-by-side.
He’s carrying a foil-wrapped container—leftovers from Rosa’s, without a doubt.
Rosa has adopted Chasity as a personal project, determined to feed her back to happiness.
Taven walks close, not crowding her, but his presence is a solid, grounding force beside her more tentative steps.
He says something, his voice too low for me to hear, and she tips her head back and laughs again.
The sound is clear and bright in the evening air. It hits me straight in the chest.
I watch Ben glance up from his work, his gaze following the sound.
He sees them, too. He watches Taven hand the container to Chasity as they reach the bottom step, the easy way his hand brushes hers.
Ben’s own hands still on his screwdriver.
Taven catches my eye from across the yard, then looks at Ben.
A single, silent circuit closes between the three of us.
And a truth settles into my bones with startling, absolute clarity.
This isn’t a race. It’s not a competition.
It’s a constellation. The quiet gravity pulling at each of us is not just about her; it’s about this strange, unspoken orbit we’ve all fallen into around her.
Ben and his quiet acts of service. Taven with his unshakeable, protective honesty.
Me with my smart mouth and warm bed. We are not just three separate lines converging on a single point.
We are becoming a pattern, woven together by shared glances and a collective, unstoppable instinct to care for this woman.
Standing here under the soft glow of the porch lights, I’m no longer wondering if they feel what I feel.
I’m starting to wonder if we all already know, and if we’re all just waiting for someone to be brave enough to say it.