Page 49 of Craving Consequences

EVERLY

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I have soup and sandwiches ready by the time the boys return. The combined weight of their footfalls echoes along the walls and reverberates across the hardwood before the pair darkens the doorway.

It’s insane how my nerves quiver. My stomach flips. The tango of my heart makes no sense when I have been intimate in nearly every possible way with both of them. Still, seeing them in dark sweats, t-shirts and bare feet standing there, watching me ... my mouth goes dry.

“Hungry?” is all I can manage around the tremor.

I’m alone with them. Utterly and truly in a way that I never imagined. There isn’t a soul for miles. No one who can just pop in. No one to question why we’re alone together. It’s just us in this sliver of the world, hidden away.

At peace.

“Smells good.”

Lachlan closes the seven steps between us in three and stops when I’m caged between him and the bubbling pot. His big hands settle on my hips, ten anchor points keeping me in place as he leans over my shoulder and inhales the scent of creamed broccoli.

Even he seems at ease. There is a lightness to his touch that echoes in the way he tilts his face and buries it in my neck. It’s so fluid and natural I’m melting back into him.

“Sit. I’ll finish,” he murmurs into my skin.

I’m not about to argue with him, but my fingers are captured by the second figure, and I’m drawn out of Lachlan’s hold.

A muscular arm snags my waist, and I’m hoisted straight off my feet and hauled to the table washed in the filmy hue of late afternoon light.

He yanks a chair free and sits, dragging me into his lap.

It shouldn’t feel so right.

Cradled protectively against Van’s chest with the rain pinging off the porch, pattering off the roof while Lachlan stirs a pot of soup has always been a distant fantasy. A tiny escape I allowed myself in the privacy of my thoughts, but never dared to believe could become a reality.

With a sighed exhale, I allow my joints to soften.

I melt into the arms holding me. I sink into the moment with too much ease.

I’m rewarded by the slip of Van’s fingers up beneath the hem of my top.

The long digits graze the plains of my belly to curve around my waist, just beneath the weight of my breast.

“Want to start after lunch?” he murmurs into my ear .

I’m distracted by the thumb he skims along the wire supporting my breasts. It takes my brain a minute to realize he means setting up for the party.

Masking my disappointment behind a nod, I drop my head back against his shoulder and graze the soft slash of his jawline with my nose. “We can—”

With a rumbling crash, thunder erupts overhead. The clouds through the skylight overhead churns with discord. Rain hammers. Another boom that shakes the house. The lights.

“Better get the candles out,” Lachlan mumbles, head tipped up towards the ceiling. “I have a feeling we won’t have electricity for long.”

No sooner has he spoken when a third crash promptly sends us into a murky gloom.

“Good going,” Van teases.

Lachlan gives a grunt of irritation as he drags the saucepan off the dead stove and sets it on a potholder on the counter.

“Is there a generator?” Lachlan asks.

Inwardly, and possibly outwardly, I wince. “Yes, but...” I pinch my lips together as I fight not to look at either man. “I’ve been forgetting to bring propane with me the last few times I’ve driven down, so ... it might still work but not for very long. ”

Lachlan tips his head back over his shoulder to frown at me, his disapproval unmistakable. “And you wanted to come alone?”

Amusement gone, I return his scowl with my own. “It’s just a little power outage. It happens everywhere. I have candles and—”

“That isn’t the point.” He huffs and looks away. “Where are the candles?”

Needing space to calm myself before I lose my temper, I push out of Van’s lap and stalk from the room.

The kitchen sits at the back of the house.

It’s tucked between the library and the sunroom before expanding down a narrow hall towards the sitting area and den.

I have to jog down into the dark, dank basement to retrieve the emergency candles.

Not the best place to keep them, granted, especially when my phone is in my purse somewhere upstairs.

Mostly likely off. But memory guides me down the damp board steps and along the concrete walls.

Like the vast majority of the human race, I hate the unfinished hole with the rumbling heater and boiler.

It stinks like the bottom of a pond and feels equally moist. As a child, I was convinced something was alive down here.

A hairy thing with long, spidery limbs and too many red eyes.

As an adult, that theory holds firm as I hit the bottom and fight the devil not to glance towards the void.

The endless black that spans into eternity.

The kind that breathes in the dense silence this far from civilization.

I hold my own breath as I creep the ten steps into the unknown, fingers extended into the darkness, searching for the row of shelves bolted into the concrete. Still, I jump when I actually make contact.

Relieved the task is complete, I snatch up the first box my fingers close around, yank it off the shelf and bolt back up the stairs.

Straight into Lachlan’s chest.

I nearly lose my grip on the candles, a scream lodged in my throat. His arms are safe and secure, closing around me, and I exhale for what feels like the first time.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs into the curve of my shoulder.

“I have no right to get upset with you for living your life.” He pulls back and I tip my face up into his bathed in deep shadows from the windowless hallway.

His warm fingers brush my cheek. “I know you can take care of yourself. I know you’re brave and resilient.

I know you can handle anything, but ... I can’t.

The thought of you being here alone, in the dark with no one to help if you need it scares the shit out of me. ”

Heart still thumping from the frantic sprint up the stairs, the collision of running into Lachlan just at the top and his sweet words has me already lightheaded before his lips even reach mine .

His fingers replace mine on the box and the candles are taken from me. They’re set on the ground at our feet as another burst of thunder explodes overhead. But his arms return, folding me in the possessive weight of his chest. His lips find mine, but not to kiss.

They hover inches over, close enough that I feel the whisper of his words.

“I’d never survive without you, sweetheart.”

Unable to hold back any longer, I rise up on my toes and circle his neck. I hold him close as I sink into his quiet confession. As I let us both lie to each other for a little longer.

I know Lachlan isn’t stupid. He knows the gist of it all better than anyone.

At the end of the week when it’s all said and done, he will be hurt, but he’ll be okay and he’ll make sure Van is, too.

The only person left alone in the wreckage will be me and that’s okay because I’ve done it before.

Only difference will be that this time, I’ve gotten better at shielding myself.

“We should find Van,” I murmur, brushing the side of his face with a sweep of my thumb.

Lachlan hums softly and turns his lips into my palm. He doesn’t speak, but the silence stretches warm between us like he, too, is holding on to the moment as tightly as I am.

Carefully, he draws back enough to stoop down and scoop up the candles. The long, white stems clack together in their confined space as they’re carried to the kitchen where Van stands at the table, spooning heaps of broccoli soup into bowls.

No one speaks as we gather around with our food. Lachlan unearths a pair of nickel candleholders Mom bought at the Carmichael’s yard sale years before. Light from the twin flames leap across the table in a comfortable halo as we sit to eat.

Conversation drifts lazily to debate over the preparations.

Who will take which part of the house. If all goes to plan and the weather cooperates, the majority of the party is supposed to take place outside with a simple BBQ and maybe some swimming in the lake.

If the weather continues to work against me, a large, hopeful part of me doesn’t think anyone will make the drive.

As successful as I want this farewell party to go, I’m too exhausted to actually entertain anyone.

Like we’ve done a million times in the past, we work together to clean and stow away the dishes before working our way through the bins in the hallway in methodical order.

It takes longer than I anticipated. Would have taken even longer if I’d done it on my own. Even with Van and Lachlan doing the bulk of the lifting, stringing, hammering, and adjusting, we have half the box of candles lit as the dull light dwindles, drowning the cabin in shadows.

“I think we might be staying the night.” Lachlan sighs, letting the lace curtains over the front windows slip shut on the foul weather still raging outside. “Do you have more candles? ”

I nod and gesture to the basement stairs. “There should be a few more boxes downstairs, but I have batteries and flashlights if we run out.”

“Why don’t we tidy up before it gets too dark, just so there’s nothing on the floor while the power’s still out,” Van suggests, nudging a bin with a toe.

“We’ll go through everything again in the morning and finish whatever’s left before we head back.

We can always come back before the party to set up the yard. ”

It’s a sound plan. Mine had been to spend the entire three days putting everything together and making sure it all ran smoothly for Lauren.

Now, I can barely bring myself to care as I help stuff streamers and fairy lights into their appropriate bins.

I run a broom over the floors while Van goes through our groceries to make something for dinner.