“I’m happy for you,” Rose says. My eyes lift from the two plates of pastry crumbs that sit between us and Rose’s grin widens beneath my scrutinous gaze. “I can tell things are different.”
“What do you mean?”
“With Lachlan. You just seem different from a couple of months ago. You looked like you wanted to murder him at Sloane’s wedding. And look at you now.” Rose’s arms spread wide and she nearly gut-punches a barista who strides past our table. “You were murdery before and now you’re all sexed-up and glowing.”
I cough around a sip of coffee. “Um … yeah. Thanks.”
“Is it good?”
“Is what good?”
“The sex. Duh.”
My cheeks heat as a memory from last night flashes through my mind: Lachlan’s face buried between my legs, my fist gripped tight in his hair as I pushed his sinful mouth against my pussy. It’s been just two weeks since our lives and desires finally aligned, and now each day we’re stitched closer together. Every night he fucks me until I’m ready to collapse, exhausted but sated. Every morning I wake up less able to imagine the days before Lachlan’s presence in my life and my bed. Sometimes his touch is all I can think about. His hands on my flesh. His kiss on my neck. His cock buried deep—
“That good that you can’t sit still, huh?” Rose asks as I shift on my seat. She grins as my blush grows hotter. “I’m happy for you, Lark. You deserve it.”
Though I give her my thanks, there’s an edge of sadness to my gratitude. I know I can’t say the same to Rose. And with the way we both look down at the table, she knows it too.
“How am I going to keep track of you?” I ask as Rose sips the last of her coffee and sets the empty mug down as she leans back to regard me with a melancholy smile.
“I do have a phone. Silveria Circus might have a nostalgic vibe, but it also has modern technology.”
“I know, but you’ll be all over the place. It’s going to be a little harder to meet up. But I’ll come see you as much as I can, whenever you’re nearby.”
“I’d love that. You and Sloane.” Rose shakes her head and swallows, her smile faltering. “You’re my girls. My bally broads.”
“I still have no idea what that means, but I kinda like it.” I smile and take a sip of my coffee. “How long before you meet up with Silveria?”
Rose glances down at her watch and gnaws at her lip. “About an hour.”
“And Fionn?”
“He’ll drop me off. And then I guess that’s that.” Rose shrugs. Sadness etches itself deeper into her features, even though she tries to hide it. I reach across the table and take her hand in mine. I know how it feels to try to maintain a mirage for someone else’s benefit while you crumble behind the illusion. But Rose wears her heart wide open for everyone to see, and it’s only a second or two before tears well in her eyes.
I don’t tell her it will be okay. I don’t know if that’s true, and I don’t want to pretend that comments like that are anything more than platitudes. Not anymore. Not for myself nor for anyone else. So instead, I hold Rose’s hand across the table and tell her what I really feel. “I’m going to miss you.”
Rose nods. “I’m going to miss you too,” she whispers. Her smile is brittle and my chest aches in reply. “You know what they say about the circus.”
“What, that the show must go on?”
“No,” she says. “That the show can’t begin until you jump.”
I’m caught in Rose’s words and her shimmering dark eyes when her phone vibrates with a text to break the spell between us. With a glance at the screen, she slides the device off the table and pockets it.
“Doc’s here. Guess I’ll see you around. Don’t be a stranger.”
We both stand and crush each other in a hug. The tremble in Rose’s shoulders cracks my heart and fills it with both pain and anger on her behalf. I know whatever is happening with Fionn is none of my business and she doesn’t seem willing to get into it in detail, but I can’t help but make a dig at him. “Maybe Lachlan wasn’t the asshat of the Kanes after all,” I whisper, and Rose laughs in my arms.
“Yeah. Maybe not,” Rose says as she places a kiss on my cheek. “Take care of yourself, Boss Hostler.”
With a final, weak smile, Rose turns away and leaves the coffee shop. I watch as she opens the door to a car waiting at the curb and disappears inside.
It’s a short walk home and I use most of it to text back and forth with Sloane. She and Rowan are spending a weekend in Martha’s Vineyard to bask in their newlywed bliss, something I guess I’m starting to feel too, even though it’s all been a little backward for Lachlan and me. But does that really matter? There’s a worn path in life that most people take when they wind up married. Fall in love first. Make your vows. But maybe I was never meant to be on it. It surprises me more than anyone when I realize that I’m happy where I am.
I’m thinking about that epiphany as I enter the apartment and send Lachlan a text to let him know I’ve arrived home. I set my mobile down to spend a little time playing with Bentley, who grabs the stuffed squeaky skull that Lachlan bought him last week. We’re playing tug-of-war when my phone vibrates on the coffee table with an incoming call.
The rush I just felt expecting to see Lachlan’s contact on my screen is washed away when it’s my mother’s details that appear instead.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Honey.”
I already know what she’s going to say next.
There’s a vortex in time right before the words come that feels even worse than the moment you hear them spoken aloud. It’s like waiting for the anticipation of a needle—you know the hurt will come, but imagining it is sometimes worse than the moment it slides into your skin.
“Auntie Ethel passed away.”
That pain still hits me like an ax to the chest. Tears fall freely down my face. We all knew this was coming. I thought about it every day. And yet it still feels like a hole has erupted inside me, a void that seems gravitational. Unfillable. Like it was made to only consume.
The tears don’t stop as my mom gives me the details. That Ethel passed in her sleep. It was peaceful. She says all the things that are supposed to be a minor comfort in the aftermath of loss. And then she talks about the practicalities that don’t stop for grief, not even for a moment. Mom sounds tentative when she asks if I want to meet them at Shoreview before the funeral home comes to take Ethel’s body away. She barely gets the question out before I tell her yes, to wait until I get there. And though my mom doesn’t ask outright about Lachlan, he’s the first person whose presence I crave. His quiet countenance. His steady shadow to my faltering light. There’s comfort knowing he’s seen more of me than I’ve been willing to share, and yet he doesn’t back away.
As soon as my mom hangs up, I select Lachlan’s number from my list of favorites. I try to compose myself, but the room seems to pulse with every beat of my heart, a watery film obscuring my vision.
Lachlan answers on the first ring. “Hey, duchess. I was just thinking about you.”
“Hi.”
That’s it. That’s all I need to say. Just one short word. A breath of sorrow.
“What’s wrong? Did something happen? Are you okay? Where are you?”
For a man who doesn’t say more than he has to, the barrage of questions almost makes me smile despite the pain that fills every crevice of my chest.
“Ethel,” I say around the stone lodged in my throat. “She passed.”
“Oh, Lark, I’m so sorry, love. I can come get you. What do you need?”
“It’ll be faster if we just meet at the nursing home.” I start gathering my belongings into my bag and head to the kitchen to refill Bentley’s water as he trails behind me. “My parents should be nearly there. I’ll grab an Uber.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I’ll be okay. It’s just …” I pause and press my lips together, trying to trap the grief that invades every bone, every drop of blood. It takes a few unsteady breaths and twisting a loose thread of my sweater around my finger until it aches before I can speak again. “It’s just that she was my anchor,” I say as I head to my bedroom. “She was steady in every storm. It’s not like I didn’t know it was coming, but I still feel … adrift. Expecting it doesn’t make it easier, you know? I was hoping we’d have a little more time.”
“I know. I was too, duchess. I’m sorry, I know how much she meant to you.” Lachlan’s heavy, worried sigh permeates the line. “Is there anything I can do?”
A breathy, mirthless laugh leaves my lips before my throat closes once more. “Probably. But right now I just need a hug.”
“I can do that,” Lachlan’s says. I clutch the phone to my ear and let the tears fall again. I feel solace in his silence. I know he’s there, giving me time, another steady anchor in a storm. I stand in the bedroom that’s become ours and stare at the floor, caught in my torrent of thoughts and realizations when his quiet voice finally pulls me free. “Lark …?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
A breath stalls in my lungs. That quiet confession echoes in my mind until it brands itself there. I love you, an indelible ink written in memory.
Every big and bold moment with Lachlan seems to roll through my mind. The first time we met. The second. That kiss in the city clerk’s office when we said our vows. The way he whispered to me just before our lips met. Geallaim duit a bheith i mo fhear céile dílis duit, fad a mhairimid le chéile. I didn’t know what it meant—I still don’t. But I felt it. That this man would be there with me in my darkest times. And if I let him, he’ll be there in the light too.
The show can’t start until you jump.
I press my hand across my eyes, but it doesn’t stop a fresh wave of tears from flooding my eyes and sliding down my skin. Bentley whines at my feet and I drop to his level, gripping an arm around his thick neck to cry into his fur as I hold the phone to my ear with an unsteady hand. “I love you too, Lachlan.”
“Get an Uber, duchess,” Lachlan says, relief and a smile in his voice. “I’ll meet you at Shoreview soon.”
With a deep sigh, I say goodbye and try to reconcile a world that feels like it’s turned upside down. Ethel is gone. Everything in my family will change. I’m in love with my husband.
An incredulous laugh bursts from my lips despite the tears that still cling to my lashes. I press my forehead to the soft fur between Bentley’s ears. “I’m in love with my husband, Bentley. I guess that means we have to keep him.” My eyes lift to the ceiling with a bittersweet smile. It doesn’t take much to imagine Ethel’s reveling in a final plan coming together just the way she wanted. “Hear that, you scheming hell-raiser? I’m in love with Lachlan Kane. I’m pretty sure that’s what you were after, right?”
I rise to my feet. Before I order an Uber, I head to the bathroom to splash water on my face. My flesh feels too hot with all this emotion coursing beneath my skin. But when I look at my reflection, I see the beauty of being stripped down to my core. It has nothing to do with the makeup that still clings to my eyes or the foundation that’s been washed away. It’s got everything to do with the person I see in the mirror matching the woman I feel like inside. One who doesn’t hide behind what the world wants to see. There’s no practiced smile, no facade to keep others from being inconvenienced by my emotions. I’m in pain and I look like I’m hurting. I’m in love and I look like I’m living.
I like the woman looking back at me. I think my aunt would be proud of her too.
I’m just wiping the final drops of water from my face as Bentley gives a warning bark from the living room. Maybe the Uber was closer than I realized and I missed the bell, I think. But when I pick up my phone and check the app as I start toward the living room, the Uber is still ten minutes away.
Bentley barks again as I enter the living space. And then he growls.
“What is—” I start, but then I see what it is—who it is.
Abe Midus is standing in my living room.
Predatory eyes. A hungry smile.
All at once we are hunter and prey.
I take off running for the kitchen. Something hits my legs and I smack into a lamp on my way to the floor. A lightning strike of pain blinds me when I land. My palm finds the side of my head and comes away sticky with blood. Bentley growls behind me. There’s a thud and he yelps. Something pierces my neck, sharp and inescapable before it’s pulled away.
I reach for my phone. My fingers slip across the glass when it’s kicked from my grasp. My groan is muffled by the roar of my heart as I try to pull myself across the floor. Power leeches from my muscles with every second that passes. I have just enough strength to turn on my back and breathe.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
Stay awake.
The edges of my vision darken and blur.
Abe Midus stands at my feet and slides a cap onto a syringe before slipping it into his pocket. A slow smile stretches across his face. Light reflects off something clutched in his grip. A black- handled tool with a brutal silver edge. Tears leak from the corners of my eyes. I try to beg but my mouth won’t form the words.
Bentley squares himself over my legs, head lowered, hackles raised. His vicious growl burns through my last moments of conscious thought. Abe bends, his eyes pinned to my snarling dog.
“Hello, you.”
