Page 115 of Where the Wattles Bloom

She straightened and reached for another item of clothing. The fact she’d avoided the question was not lost on Lachlan, and his heart started to spin like a disco ball in his chest.

‘I’m not stopping you.’ He held his hands up in a surrender motion. ‘I’m only asking you to stay until you originally planned. My family will be gone soon and I want to spend some alone time with you before you leave for Sydney.’

Having everyone around had been good, but was it too selfish of him to want to have her to himself before she left?

‘I’m sorry.’ She shook her head. ‘I know it’s shitty timing. But I think it’s best if I go now.’

Every cell in Lachlan’s body screamed at him to do something. To make her stay. But he knew he couldn’t force her. He could only appeal to that part in her that he sensed didn’t want to go, so he simply said, ‘Please.’

Her throat bobbed and she took a beat before turning those green eyes on him again. ‘It’s only two weeks, Lachlan. What does it matter?’

Afterwards, Lachlan wasn’t sure where the rage came from. One second, he was being calm and reasonable, the next there was a red mist. Her careless dismissal of how badly he wanted to spend time with her mixed with his still very raw grief, coalescing into a mushroom cloud of pissed off.

‘What does it matter?’ He gaped at her incredulously. ‘It’s only two weeks? Two weeks of laughing and loving and getting to feel your tummy any time I want? Watch your body change? Two weeks of feeling my baby kick?’

The air in Lachlan’s lungs burned hot, like the steam rising from a geyser. Everything about this separation was going to suck but thinking about what he’d miss where the baby was concerned was an extra kick in the teeth.

‘The last two weeks we get to have together before you take off for Sydney and then I don’t know what the hell happens after that?’

Lachlan had been trying to be okay about the uncertainty, and he was okay for the most part, but damn it all, could she not see it was a big ask?

‘I’m trying really hard with this, Rowena.’ The emphasis was petty but he had a full head of steam going on. ‘Because I understand you have to go back to Sydney and do what you need to do but please, for the love of all that is holy, try and remember that I have feelings too.’ He shoved a hand through his hair. ‘I’m in love with you, god damn it.’

His admission was out before his brain could catch up, dropping like a stone into the deep, bottomless crevice that suddenly opened between them.

Rowena paled before his eyes and went very, very still, pausing mid-fold. ‘What?’

Well … crap. He hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that. In fact, until this moment he hadn’t fully realised that was how he felt. But it blossomed in his chest now, real and fresh and so fucking obvious his disco ball heart threw mirrored rainbows around the inside of his chest.

And now it was out there, he wasn’t taking it back. He fucking loved her.

Game over. The end.

Huffing out an enormous sigh, Lachlan let go of all his anger and animus, locking eyes with her. ‘I said I love you.’

She still hadn’t moved. She just stood there with a shirt in her hand, blinking rapidly, and Lachlan started to wonder if he’d broken her. It was a relief when she finally gathered herself enough to speak.

‘Don’t say that,’ she whispered.

Lachlan blew out a steady breath at her rejection. He knew he’d shocked her—hell, he’d shocked himself. But he wasn’t going to let her talk him out of something that glowed inside him brighter and brighter with each passing second.

‘I can’t not.’ He shrugged. ‘I love you.’

It was her turn for the red mist then. Dropping the shirt in her hand, she stalked away from him, putting as much space between them as the room would allow.

‘Are you kidding me?’ Ragged breathing agitated her lungs and flared her nostrils. ‘Don’t say that to me. How … dare you say that to me now!’

Lachlan cringed. She was right—confessing his love for the first time as Rowena walked out of his life was a supremely idiotic thing to do. How was she supposed to know it was genuine and not some ploy to manipulate her into staying? A desperate move to get what he wanted. A cowardly attempt at emotional blackmail.

Good one, dickhead.

If he could have kicked his own arse, he would have. But it was out there now so he was going to have to back it the fuck up.

‘You ask me why I can’t stay?’ she demanded. ‘It’s because of this. You love me? Since when, Lachlan?’

He knew exactly when. He might have only known he was in love with her for a few minutes but now he’d caught up, he could pinpoint the exact moment.

‘It was when you told me you broke the window that day at the roadside. I never realised I had such a competence kink until I saw you there in the dirt saving a stranger’s life.’