Chapter 13
ROBYN
Call your sister.
I stared down at the message in the email app on my phone.
It was from my mom.
I’d expected another call after I hung up on her yesterday in the hospital. This short, to-the-point email instead was unexpected.
And somehow worse than an angry rant.
It practically dripped with the disdain of disappointment.
Guilt kept me company all day and night.
And worry. Mom wouldn’t tell me what was going on, only that Regan was home and acting shady.
As much as I’d hounded her for details, Mom wouldn’t give them to me, and she’d shut Seth up so he couldn’t either.
It was Mom’s way of making me imagine all kinds of shitty things so I would step up and help.
As much as I tried not to, and as much as I’d tried to break the chains of the role I’d been given in my sister’s life, I found myself cursing under my breath and calling her.
It went straight to voicemail.
Hey, you’ve reached Regan. I’m otherwise engaged at the moment, but leave a message after the beep and I’ll get back to you if I feel like it.
Brat.
“Change your voicemail, you sound like a dick,” I said after the beep.
“And get back to me. If it’s too pricey to call, email me.
I mean it, Regan. I have Mom on my ass about whatever it is you’re getting up to back home.
” I hung up angrily because I hated that she made me worry when she seemingly couldn’t give a damn about me.
Shoving my phone in my ass pocket, I pushed into Morag’s trying to shake off the guilt I shouldn’t feel.
Why did parents have the ability to do that?
For some reason, it had fallen to me to be Regan’s guide, guardian, protector, or whatever.
She’d always been a little wild and impulsive as a kid, and I’d been the only one able to temper her.
My mom, in particular, had come to expect me to be the one who made Regan toe the line.
And it was just crappy of Mom to withhold details of my sister’s escapades to manipulate me into toeing the line.
Despite the four-year age difference, we’d never needed anyone else to be our best friend when we were kids.
When I was fourteen and going out on my first date, it was ten-year-old Regan who sat in my room and talked about what I would wear.
When Mom argued against me joining the force after college, Regan and Seth were the ones who supported the decision.
Regan was there to pick up the pieces the first and only time I’d had my heart broken.
I was nineteen, Josh was my college boyfriend, and while he promised he’d never cheated on me, he fell in love with a senior and dumped me.
At seventeen, Regan had a pregnancy scare when a test kit turned positive, and it was me who took her to the doctor.
It was me who held her while she cried with relief when the doctor said she wasn’t pregnant, and it was me who told the doctor to mind his own business when he tried to lecture my sister on “promiscuous behavior.”
When our parents got into it with Regan about having no life direction after college, I was the one there supporting her and telling her she had plenty of time to figure out what she wanted to do with her future.
Always me and her against the world.
Until she took off with a group of friends she’d met online to backpack around Asia. That was around four weeks after I’d been shot.
My best friend.
Turned her back on me when I needed her most.
Kind of like Mac.
It made it hard to trust people when the ones you trusted most proved to be the most unreliable.
It didn’t mean I wasn’t worried about Regan and what might be going on with her, but I was in the middle of a pretty big life situation myself.
Instead of running after Regan, like Mom obviously wanted me to do, for once, I was putting myself first. Mom and Seth could deal with my sister.
As for my abandonment issues, I refused to let it poison any possible friendships or relationships in the future.
Well, except with Lachlan.
The guy gave me whiplash. One minute I thought we’d attained a level of civility, and the next, he ignited an inner anger and fire that confused the heck out of me. Just the thought of my immature argument with him at the hospital in front of Mac was enough to make my cheeks hot.
“Robyn,” Morag greeted with a warm smile, pulling me out of my mortifying memories of yesterday. Had I called myself epic in front of Lachlan?
So what? You are epic.
I nodded to myself.
You couldn’t walk into dangerous situations like I had as a cop without confidence in your abilities.
There was a balance. If you thought you were invincible, you’d get hurt (though sometimes that happened, anyway), but if you struck just the right chords of self-assurance and self-belief, it made dealing with the worst parts of the job, and the worst kinds of people, possible.
“Hey, Morag.”
“Same today?”
I’d visited every morning to buy a sandwich since that first day. “Yeah, please, times two, though.”
“How’s Mac?” she asked as she worked.
“At the castle, recuperating.” I smirked as I remembered helping him get settled into a suite that was much bigger than even Lachlan’s private rooms. “Frustrated with the idea of bed rest.”
Morag chuckled. “Oh, I can imagine.” Her gaze flickered over me. “I still can’t believe Mac has a daughter your age. Gosh, he must have been so young.”
I’d heard the same thing repeatedly over the last eight days, mostly from nurses at the hospital who clearly had whopping crushes on my father.
An image of him and Arrochar in his hospital room floated across my mind.
It was strange to me—surprising—but from an outsider’s perspective?
Not so much.
I grimaced. The idea of my father dating a thirty-something woman wasn’t actually weird, but it was weird for me. Mac never brought women around when I was a kid, and I had no idea if he’d had any serious relationships over the past twenty-eight years.
I’d always held on to the fact that his age was a huge factor in him abandoning me … but it was never clearer than it was now that I was grown up, thinking back on myself at sixteen, that Mac was a kid when Mom had me. An actual kid.
Look how scared Regan and I were when she had a pregnancy scare at seventeen.
But would you have taken off, left your kid?
No.
Then again, neither had Mac. Not at first.
That came later, when he was older. When I was a little older. No longer his “wee birdie,” even though he’d started calling me that again.
And fuck, did it hurt every time he did.
A deep, aching tension pressed against my skull.
“I’m sorry, Robyn, I didn’t mean to say anything out of turn.”
Blinking in confusion at Morag, I realized by her expression and my sudden headache that I was practically scowling at her. “Oh. No. You didn’t. Sorry … I drifted. That was rude.”
Her face cleared. “Not at all. Are you off to visit Mac?”
“Yeah, the other sandwich is for him.”
“Oh, you should have said. Mac likes my roast beef and pickle sandwich the best.”
Another reminder that I didn’t even know what kind of sandwich my dad liked. “Then I’ll take one of those instead.”
“He always buys two. Big, strapping man like Mac.” She tittered like a schoolgirl.
God, was there anyone who didn’t have a crush on my father?
It is not Morag’s fault I am estranged from Mac, I vehemently reminded myself as I gave her a tight smile and nodded for her to make two.
Morag’s bell rang, and I glanced over my shoulder. McCulloch trudged toward us. I hadn’t seen him in the shop since that first day. Then again, I hadn’t been in this early on my other visits. But I was eager to get more of a measure of the man now that he was on my suspect list.
He had an intimidating presence, not just because of his size. It was the way his dark eyes zeroed in on me; his icy focus was surprising. I straightened as if I’d been smacked on the ass.
“Morning, Collum, I have yours here,” Morag said, turning to retrieve his daily order.
His eyes remained on me.
I raised an eyebrow, refusing to be intimidated. “Good morning.”
“You’re Galbraith’s daughter.”
I didn’t like his disparaging tone. In fact, I felt positively defensive. “I am.” Got a problem with that?
The farmer grunted. “Never understood his alliance with the Adairs.”
“Alliance? You mean friendship?”
“It isn’t friendship when you’re being paid, lass.” He narrowed his eyes. “I always warned your father to watch his back, getting caught up with the likes of Lachlan Adair. I guess I should have warned him to watch his front.”
That sounded suspiciously ominous and threatening.
“Collum.” Morag, face taut with irritation, skirted the counter to hand him his sandwich.
He snapped it out of her hands and handed over the money.
Then his dark eyes returned to me. “Lachlan Adair isn’t worth protecting.
Just like his old man, he’s a thieving, money-grubbing bastard.
Turned this village into a sideshow with his useless Hollywood followers.
Anything that happens to him, he most likely brought on himself.
I wouldn’t get in the way of that if I were you, lass.
Like I said, he’s not worth making yourself or your father collateral damage. ”
“Collum!” Morag snapped.
But the farmer was already striding out of the shop.
My hands fisted at my sides so tightly, my nails bit into my skin.
“He didn’t mean anything by that, Robyn. His issues with the Adairs go back a long way.”
Yeah. They sure did. But that sounded a lot like a threat to me.
Either he didn’t see me as someone he needed to watch his words around, or he actually didn’t care if he was a suspect.
I knew from Mac that the police had interviewed McCulloch, and he’d staunchly denied having anything to do with the events at the estate.
If I were McCulloch and I wasn’t behind the crimes but I wanted revenge on Lachlan, I’d leak the situation to the press, right?
But he hadn’t.