Chapter 89 Deli
Deli
Deli MacDonald knelt at the cliff’s edge and watched the blood trace a path from her knee to her formerly white sock. She’d run like she was still nine years old, and her ankle had seized in the cold.
“Well. At least the rain’s cleared,” she muttered as she lifted a long stem with a starburst of bright purple flowers toward her to look. It was growing through a patch of blooming heather. “I wonder what you are?”
“Wild mountain thyme.” The sound of his voice behind her sent goosebumps across her arms, like always. “You and your ankles will be the death of me.”
Deli stood and turned.
Lachlan Scott was a thing made of magic. His family’s tartan wrapped his hips as he walked toward her. The light of the sun dipping into the sea lit his skin, his hair, his eyes on fire against the indigo storm clouds behind him.
“You’re bleeding.”
Deli grinned. “You’re wearing a kilt.”
“So I am.” He paused on the path below her and looked up with one knee bent. “I’m trying to dress the part. See, I’m looking for someone. Legend says if one searches the Highlands, they’re bound to find a mythical sort of woman—”
“She sounds hot.”
His laughter made her feel lighter. “You have no idea.”
Deli propped a hand on her hip. “Oh really?”
“Hmm.” He stepped closer. She felt the blood rush to her . . . well. Everything. “She’s got these eyes. Like endless summers, birdsong, and sea breeze. They could drive a man to do unmentionable things.”
Lachlan took a step nearer with each thing he listed.
“She sounds fake.”
“And her hair—god, it’s soft. Ink stroke and midnight.”
Deli swallowed. He was only a few feet away.
“Her smile feels like coming home. It’s like . . . finding a tree to read beneath with just the right curve.”
“Oh, so she reads? Nerd.”
“Speaking of curves . . .”
The way Lachlan beheld her—like she was some precious, priceless thing he coveted? She’d never wanted to be a mind reader more in her life.
“She’s . . .”
His eyes simmered.
“. . . perfect.” Lachlan took one last step to meet her, but he didn’t touch her. “Do you want to know the best part about her—this magic girl of mine?”
Deli didn’t trust her mouth. No, her brain. Her mouth or her brain. “Mmhmm?”
His fingers brushed her jaw.
“Everything else.”
He dropped suddenly and knelt before her.
If her face matched what was in her brain, she looked horrified. “Oh no. Not again.”
Lachlan grinned as he touched her knee, then her ankle, so softly she ached.
“Are you alright?”
The whirlwind of her life since arriving in Fearnhall washed over her, and though Deli was now much closer acquainted with grief, she knew it was the truth when she said, “Yes. I’m alright.”
He took her hand as he stood and brought it to his smiling lips.
“So,” she said, “if your mystery woman is out roaming the fields—”
“And sheep farms and talent shows.”
“—what are you doing here with me?”
“Hoping I found her.” Lachlan’s smile turned a bit sad, but recovered. “And I thought I’d better check on you. A very angry little man stopped by the pub.”
Her hand shot to her mouth. “No.”
“Oh yes, he was a ray of sunshine.”
“Oh god. What did he say?”
Lachlan shrugged. “I can’t remember much before Hannah knocked his lights out.”
“Hannah what?”
He closed his eyes like he was picturing the scene in his mind. “I’ll still be thinking about it on my deathbed.”
They laughed. He pressed one finger to her chest, just above her heart. “I ask again”—he tapped the spot lightly—“are you alright?”
Deli didn’t have to hesitate. “I am now.” Lachlan wrapped his arms around her and they swayed. “Wild mountain thyme, huh?” she asked into his chest.
“Aye. Do you know what it means?”
Deli looked up at him. “Do you know what it means?”
“It can mean action and affection.” He looked at her with such affection it made her want to cry. “It speaks of healing, bravery, death, and daring—”
Deli was in awe of the enchanted soil—the way it produced exactly what needed to be said, to be grown, to be harvested, again and again and again.
“—and, of course, a good sleep.”
Deli grinned. “That’s important.”
Lachlan nodded. “A wee flower with a mighty voice.”
They watched the sun sink lower for a moment. “How’d you know all that?”
His chest rose and fell against her. “I have been doing a bit of studying.”
“Why?”
Lachlan pulled back and tucked her hair behind her ear. The look in his eyes was the one she’d seen in their photographs together. “So I could speak your language.”
If a million men told Deli they were madly in love with her, that would still be the most romantic thing she’d ever heard.
Lachlan let her go and fixed his eyes on the horizon. “When do you leave?”
“I dunno,” Deli said. “It’s a little early to book flights. Grandma’s still kickin’.”
He kept his face stoic. “Does that mean . . . ?”
“I do remember telling you,” Deli said as she laced her fingers through his, “you wouldn’t be able to chase me off.”
For one agonizing moment, Lachlan said nothing. His face turned pained. He studied the blooming thyme and heather, then met her eyes.
“You know I’m in love with you, don’t you?”
She closed her eyes as she smiled, soaking in the moment, memorizing the details to write down later so she would always be able to visit who she was when she was a young woman in the cottage by the sea.
Deli leaned toward him, and his lips were so close she could almost taste electricity on her tongue as his free hand came under her chin.
Then the sky flashed as lightning streaked through the clouds, and with a clap of thunder that shook the cliffside, it opened.
Lachlan still balanced her jaw on his fingers, still tilted his mouth to mirror hers. Deli had been wrong about him. Of all the things Lachlan handled with care, it was with her he was most tender. His whispered question asked so much more than it sounded.
“Are we out of time?”
Deli couldn’t believe her luck—for all she’d lost, look what she’d found. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”
His lips brushed hers, and lightning exploded.
She paused. “Um, except maybe we should spend that time not on the highest point in the area during a lightning storm?”
Lachlan nodded once. “Yep.”
“And, Lachlan? This time, let’s take the short way home.”