Chapter 21
Lachlan
Lachlan watched Deli being jostled in the back seat of his Defender as she refreshed her phone in the dark. He made a mental tick on his running list of successful irritations accomplished thus far.
“Is there service anywhere around here?” she asked through the turbulence.
“At the pub!” Mo hadn’t dropped the impish look in her eye since he picked them up. When he’d lost the round of poker that had given Mo the unilateral right to call on him as designated driver for a year’s time, he hadn’t anticipated Deli. He didn’t want her in his truck, much less his home.
They drove down the narrow street, flanked on one side by the dark sea.
At the very end, across from a dock anchoring small fishing boats rising and falling with the waves, stood The Wallflower’s Crown.
Warm light flickered through amber windows like the moonlight catching on the crests of dark water as Lachlan parked.
He’d had another row with William a few months before about solutions for the rapidly approaching crisis point between upkeep and income.
He tried not to fixate on the energy bill.
Deli climbed out and stood with her toes pressed against the small retaining wall, as close to the water as she could be.
She stared out and up, taking in the moon and the pricks of starlight dappling the dark bay with their reflection—safe with mountains standing guard on either side.
Her breath escaped in a small cloud as she exhaled a simple, “Oh.”
He didn’t realize how close he’d gotten to her until he whispered, “What are you looking at?”
She shook her head. “There are so many stars.”
Deli’s eyes glimmered with silver light. The air smelled like salt and rain.
Lachlan turned on his heel and stomped toward his father’s—well, his—pub.
Mo and Deli were met with an eruption of cheers. Lachlan slipped into his place behind the bar and watched, only half listening to the patrons he poured for.
“There ye are, lass!” Douglas wrapped Mo in a hug, his potbelly complementing his shiny bald head. “Ye promise us the beauty and wiles of another mysterious McDonnell woman, and make us wait for days?
“And you.” Douglas placed his hands on Deli’s shoulders. He had to look up to meet her eyeline. Lachlan strained to hear the conversation over the din of the pub. “Indeed, a classic Hollywood beauty. I can’t believe they let you leave!”
Deli beamed as she gripped his forearms in a sort of comrade’s embrace. Lachlan’s jaw tightened. “They practically kicked me out! Too pale, no tolerance for heat, not for the big screen.”
“Shite, all of it. I’m Douglas.”
“A man of taste. I like that about you, Douglas.”
Douglas smirked at Mo. “She can stay.”
“She’s welcome as long as she likes,” Mo said. Deli’s gaze flicked up to Mo’s, and Lachlan’s heart pounded with urgency.
Blair tugged on Douglas from behind. “Give her some room or you’ll scare her off, Douglas.”
He stared up at Blair’s six feet of height and waterfall of dark copper hair.
“No, Blaaaair,” Douglas said, dragging out her name. “My new bestie and I are bonding. She’ll be stayin’ forever, I’ll have you know.”
Lachlan pulled the wrong tap, dumped the glass, and started over.
“Come off it, Douglas,” Blair said, “or she’ll be gone by the morning.”
Deli grinned. “Douglas doesn’t scare me.”
“Wait till you see him dance. It gives my children nightmares,” Blair said.
“Bollocks! The wee ones love Uncle Douggie!”
“You’re the monster under their bed, Douglas.”
Douglas’s smile was wide enough to show the gap of his missing tooth. “Jealousy looks good on you, Red!”
“In your dreams, Douggie!”
Blair wrapped an arm around Deli and guided her to a table with many of the same people Lachlan had known his whole life—who’d patronized The Wallflower, as it was known by most, when he was small enough to weave between the table legs and pluck lost coins from the cracks in the wooden floor.
Graham leaned close to ask Deli a question as he gestured toward the bar, his long salt-and-pepper dreadlocks sweeping her knee.
He straightened and called, “Oi, Lachlan! A gin and tonic with lime!”
Deli followed Graham’s gaze and caught Lachlan’s eye.
Graham’s wide smile changed to a frown. “Did you hear me, brother?”
Lachlan blinked hard and began to move. “Gin and tonic, you got it.”
When he turned back to the bar top with gin in his hand, Mo was sitting on the barstool across from him. “So. What do you think?”
Lachlan shrugged. “It’s a good turnout.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know that’s not what I mean.”
He set the gin and tonic on the bar and reached for a pint glass. “I don’t presume to ever know what you mean, Mo.”
She caught the pint of Guinness he slid across the surface he polished every morning, just like his father used to. “What do you think of Deli?”
There was very little Lachlan had ever successfully hidden from Mo, even as an adult, but he was trying. He focused on pouring another pint no one asked for. “I barely know her.”
“Lachlan Scott, look at me.” Mo’s tactical mum voice worked. He slowly met her eyes and sighed.
“She’s fine, Mo.”
“Fine?”
He clung to his indifference. “Fine.”
She frowned. “Lachlan, ‘fine’ is how you describe Douglas’s cooking.”
“His cooking is fine.”
“You were on the toilet for a week.”
“And I’m stronger for it.”
Mo narrowed her eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?” A peal of laughter from Deli’s table reached them, and he looked toward her, then back to Mo. She softened her tone, leaned closer, and asked again, “What aren’t you telling me?”
Mo’s Guinness sloshed over the edge of her glass as Douglas collided into her from behind, wrapping his hands around her middle and plopping his head on her shoulder. “Look alive, Mo! It’s time!”
He grabbed Deli’s gin and tonic and twirled away.
Graham dimmed the overhead lights as Hannah hung the holiday bulbs in a square over the fireplace to make the stage.
Blair and her partner, Andrew, moved chairs and tables into place as Douglas held up a plastic Tesco’s bag and shouted “Prepare thyselves, fools!” before disappearing into the bathroom.
Lachlan hadn’t really believed Talent Show Night would stick when he’d agreed to it—considering the same motley crew of folks who’d known each other their entire lives would be performing each month.
But he’d underestimated their boredom, and now he’d seen Mo juggle and Douglas do .
. . whatever Douglas did about twelve times.
Mo’s eyes went wide with delight. “Douglas is first?”
Lachlan reached over the bar and plucked a clipboard off a nail on the wall. “Aye, and he’ll be performing a double feature tonight.”
Deli was helping Graham move an overstuffed armchair. The few dark wisps that had escaped her bun clung to her face, arcing over her cheekbone like water running downhill.
“If Deli’s still around after a double helping of Douglas, nothing will chase her off.” Mo watched Deli, too—hope blooming in a barren garden, unaware of a coming frost.
His friend, so kind to so many—so hungry for the family she’d never had—didn’t know the killing cold was coming. That she was already here.
As Mo slid off the barstool and headed toward the lumpy sofa, shouting, “Dibs on the couch!”—Lachlan reminded himself why he was doing what he was doing.
Mo had sacrificed her entire world once to put an ocean between her and that family, and Deli was here—still without a reason—building a bloody bridge.
And once she did, she would be like everyone else.
She would leave. And she would take the very best of Mo with her, stuffed into the pockets of a well-loved leather jacket.
Lachlan had to make sure Deli left before she ever got close.
He had to protect his family.