Trapped by Them novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Let Her Choose

At her father's Sunday table Lachlan's knee and Tobias's hand both find Larissa, and in Lachlan's coat she finds Friday's list with a note that proves he built the exam room himself.

My father's dining table seats six, and on Sunday it held five of us and a roast.

My stepmother had set me between the two men.

I would have bet money she had done it on purpose, but she only smiled and passed me the potatoes.

"Tobias, sit by your sister," she had said.

Tobias had looked at the ceiling and sat down.

Lachlan took the chair on my other side, where he had sat at every family dinner of my life.

"So," my father said, carving. "How did the clinic go, Larissa? Lachlan wouldn't tell me a thing."

"I wouldn't," Lachlan said. "She's an adult."

"It went fine," I said. "They want me back for a follow-up."

Under the table, Lachlan's knee settled against mine.

It did not move.

It was warm through my jeans, and it was not an accident.

I kept my face still and reached for the water glass.

On my left, Tobias reached for the salt at the same moment.

His fingers closed over my hand instead of the shaker.

He let go at once.

"Sorry," he said.

"It's fine," I said, and my voice cracked on it.

My stepmother looked from his face to mine, and then at the roast.

"Tobias tells me you two ran into each other at the hospital," she said.

"We did," Tobias said. "She came in for a clinic day."

"And Lachlan runs that clinic," my father said, pleased. "Everyone I love in one building. I like that."

Lachlan's knee pressed a little harder.

I put my fork down.

"Dad, can I borrow the good stepladder after dinner? The library wants me to reach the top shelf of the old atlases."

"Take it," my father said. "Tobias will carry it."

"I'll carry it," Lachlan said at the same time.

Nobody spoke for a moment.

My father laughed. "Look at that. Two of them fighting to be useful."

My stepmother stood up and began collecting plates.

"Larissa, help me in the kitchen."

I followed her with my hands full of plates and my pulse in my ears.

She ran the water and did not look at me.

"I'm not asking anything," she said. "But my son is not eating, and you are not eating, and I have known Lachlan for two years, and he has never once looked at a woman the way he looked at you just now."

"He's known me since before I could walk," I said.

"Larissa."

"It's nothing."

She turned off the tap.

"Be careful," she said. "That's all. Be careful with all of it."

She went back out with the gravy boat.

I stood at the sink with my hands in warm water and shook.

When I came back, my father had taken Tobias out to the garage to find the stepladder, and the dining room was empty except for Lachlan.

He was standing in the hall with his coat over one arm.

"Larissa," he said quietly.

"Not here."

"I know. Tomorrow? Anywhere you like."

"I'll think about it."

He nodded once.

Then my father's voice came from the garage, and Lachlan stepped away from me and said, loud and easy, "Be right there."

He draped his coat over the stair banister and went out.

I looked at the coat.

I should not have touched it.

There was a folded paper sticking out of the breast pocket, the corner of it printed in the hospital's blue.

I pulled it out.

It was Friday's teaching list.

Larissa Hartigan was the third line, with a pencil check beside it.

At the bottom, in Lachlan's square handwriting, he had written two notes.

The first said: T on the door. Don't tell her.

The second was underlined twice.

It said: Let her choose.

I read it three times.

Behind me the garage door rumbled, and my father's laugh came across the yard.

I folded the paper along its creases and stood there, holding it, and I understood that Lachlan had not walked into that exam room by accident.

He had built it.

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