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“Of course it’s about what happened at the bar. Do you see how I get? I was crazy. Jealous. Possessive.”
“If a woman came up to you and talked to you like that I would feel possessive, too. We aren’t used to looking at each other that way. We are learning. You have to stop acting like this is it. Like this is all we’ll be, and we won’t figure it out.”
“I’ve seen the progression of it. That’s the problem. It scares the hell out of me.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“But you should be. You really should be.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHARITYLOOKEDATLACHLAN. She had never seen him like this. He was talking about leaving her like it wasn’t going to be so painful he was doing harm to her. He was acting like it would be doing her a favor, and she could see that he believed it. He was broken in a way that she hadn’t witnessed, all these years, and she knew there wasn’t a stitch that she could put in his body to shore this up. To make it right.
He was going to have to see himself completely differently, and he couldn’t do that. It was like he had been completely unprepared for the reality of love and what it really meant.
So had she. It heightened your emotions. It made everything feel so much more terrifying. Lovedidborder on obsession, and they had become a kind of all-consuming force in each other’s lives. She understood why it scared him.
But the bottom line was... The bottom line was that she loved him. Through this. All of it. But she was terrified of him leaving and not coming back, because her dad had left her and not come back. She knew that he had died, but still. Why did she have to keep losing people? She didn’t want to be left. And she had given herself. Her true, real self, and he was leaving. It was her worst nightmare.
And it was Lachlan. And itwasn’t fair.
Leaving her and her child, a rejection that cut so deep she could scarcely breathe through it. It was so painful. So ridiculously hurtful.
She knew that he was actually cutting himself open. She knew that he was bleeding out, right there in front of her. As much as she was.
Why was he doing this? Only because he thought he had to. Because of fear. She knew him well enough to know that. He would never hurt her on purpose. And he was hurting her. He was destroying her.
But he thought he had to.
“Don’t leave me,” she said.
“I’m saving you,” he said.
He stood and walked back into the house. And she just stood and watched him go. He returned a moment later, carrying a small bag, and he got into his truck.
“No,” she said. “What are you doing?”
“I’ll get in touch in a couple of days.”
“No, Lachlan. You can’t do this. You can’t do this to me. You can’t do this to us. I am begging you. Please.”
“I’m doing this for you.”
He got into the truck and started to drive away.
She grabbed a rock out of the driveway and threw it. It hit the tailgate with a violent sound, and she knew it left a dent there. But she didn’t care.
She could be the same way. She could be violent, too. And angry.So angry.
And right now she could hate him as much as she had ever loved him. In fact, she could feel both things right at the same time. It wasn’t even hard. It just felt like dying. That was all. She went back into the house, and she paced around for a second.
Then she picked up the phone and called Gus.
HEWASAmile down the highway when the truck came up on his bumper. Flashing its lights and just about butting up against his tail end. What the hell? It was weird enough that it just about undid his focus on the bloody pain that he was in. And itwasbloody. Nearly unendurable. The worst thing he’d ever experienced in his damned life.
But right now he had a madman on his ass.
The truck behind him crept up and nearly tapped his bumper, he was coming so close. Lachlan swerved off to the side of the road, and the truck did the same.
