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They were not kin. But hey, Daughtry King was close to kin, in fashion.
“Let’s go,” one of the guys said. And they all slunk right out of the bar.
He looked over at Charity, whose eyes were wide, fear radiating from them.
“Honey,” he said. “It’s okay.”
“I know,” she said. “I was fine, though.”
“It wasn’t fine.”
Suddenly, it all started to hit him. They had just been in a huge bar fight. Because he had gotten jealous. Because he was... He wasobsessedwith his wife. In such a toxic way. It had just been getting more and more intense. And he had no idea where to go from here. This was what he had been afraid of. That it would do this to him. That he would be like his father.
It turned out he was way more of a chip off the old block than he’d like to believe.
The McClouds all went back to the ranch with minor cuts and bruises, but really, you should see the other guys. His brothers were amused by the whole thing, but Lachlan felt suffocated by his own darkness.
It didn’t get better when he got home. He avoided going to bed when Charity did, and joined her long after, but he couldn’t stand lying next to her.
Horror was still pounding through him after the fight. He couldn’t believe that he had done that. That he’d gone after that guy, and he left no choice but for his brothers to get involved. They were damn well lucky that the cops hadn’t come out. It was only because they were local, and they were the McCloud boys, that they weren’t getting dragged straight into the sheriff station like they probably should’ve been.
But it was the rage that he recognized in himself that had fractured everything. Ruined every damn thing.
Because he’d been convinced. He’d been convinced that he could do this. That he could have a baby with Charity. Be her husband. He had been convinced that the friendship love that they had would be enough. That it would insulate him from this kind of insanity. But it hadn’t.
He’d been unhinged. And he didn’t know where that would end.
He damn well didn’t know. He was going deep into uncharted territory with her.
And it killed him.
He tore the covers off him and got out of bed. He went outside, ignoring the frigid weather.
“What am I supposed to do?” Maybe he was asking Albert. Maybe he was asking whoever was in charge. “How am I supposed to... How am I supposed to do this?”
He couldn’t. That was it. That was the answer. He had already taken Charity and ruined her life. He had married her. He had gotten her pregnant, and now, here in the last moments of it, he wasn’t sure if he could do it.
He had to leave.
He had to get some distance. He had to get his head on straight. He put his jeans and a T-shirt on and stumbled outside. And on his way out to the truck he fell to his knees. Because he felt too weak for all of this.
Too weak to go and too weak to stay, and he hated himself for that. Because hadn’t that been what his dad had always told him? That he was weak.
“You didn’t hate me because I’m weak, Dad. You hated me because you saw yourself in me. That’s the truth of it. It’s the Goddamn truth.” The words, the truth, it was all torn from him.
He knew it was true.
Because it was why he hated his dad. He was the one who really got it. He was the one who knew.
It wasn’t hatred that drove that man.
It was love set on fire so that it burned to ash, so that it wasn’t recognizable as what it had been. Nothing but destruction.
“Lachlan?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Lachlan McCloud. I swear if you run from me, if you run from your best friend, if you run from your wife, I am going to be very mad at you.”
