Chapter 17
ROBYN
Thankfully, Mac seemed to accept that I was flustered from being caught in a torrential downpour and had no idea what just occurred between me and his boss/friend.
Since it had been over a week since I’d seen my father, it shouldn’t have been a surprise to find him walking around his suite, but it was.
He was recovering fast, which shouldn’t have been a surprise either.
He’d answered the door, taken one look at the state of me, and dug out an oversized T-shirt for me to change into.
He’d then called housekeeping to collect my clothes to dry them as fast as possible; they’d brought tea too.
Since I was eight inches shorter than my father, his T-shirt almost hit my knees.
I used his blow-dryer for my hair, and he insisted I tuck a throw across my lap.
He then shoved a hot mug of tea into my hands.
I wanted to tell him not to bother because my blood was still on fire from the hottest make-out session of my life.
Why Lachlan Adair?
I barely liked the man.
In fact, I wasn’t even sure I barely liked him.
And now I was facing Mac, the tension thick between us, and I felt exhausted and overwhelmed by … well, my freaking life.
Mac was settled in an armchair across from me, his feet on a stool. We stared silently at one another. Every lamp was switched on in the room to fight the gloom of the dark clouds over Ardnoch.
“It rains here a lot,” I muttered inanely.
“Welcome to Scotland, sweetheart,” Mac replied dryly.
“Do you miss LA?” It had been his semipermanent residence for years while Lachlan was making bank in Hollywood.
“Sometimes I miss the good weather. I don’t miss LA.”
“Do you get bored here?”
He shook his head. “No. I like the peace and quiet. And I travel during my annual leave for a change of pace.”
“I haven’t traveled much.”
“No?”
“Regan and I always said we’d go backpacking together.
” I smirked unhappily. “She went with some friends instead. I had my job. I couldn’t just take three months off.
” Maybe if I had, our relationship wouldn’t be in tatters.
I wouldn’t have gotten shot. But then if I hadn’t gotten shot, Regan wouldn’t have had the chance to prove how selfish she is.
“How is Regan?”
Remembering how Mac used to be Uncle Mac to my little sister, I shrugged, my bitterness probably clear to hear and see.
“I wouldn’t know. She walked out of my life after the shooting.
Like I said, took off backpacking. Mom called to say she’s worried about her, but she won’t tell me why, and Regan won’t call me back. ”
Mac’s eyes narrowed. “It’s not up to you to chase her. Your sister is a grown woman.”
“But that’s what you do for family. You never give up on them, even if they give up on you.”
Dismay filled Mac’s expression. “Oh sweetheart … I never once gave up on you.”
This was it.
We were doing this.
Blood rushed in my ears. “Funny, it felt an awful lot like it.”
Mac leaned forward in his chair, winced, and sat back.
Reminded of his wound, I said, “Maybe we shouldn’t do this now.”
“We’re doing this. You came all the way here so we could do this. And I want you to say everything you came here to say. No matter how difficult it might be to hear.”
Emotion clogged my throat. Where did I start? How did I do this? My mouth made up my mind for me. “I didn’t see you for nearly a year after my twelfth birthday. And then you missed my thirteenth and my fourteenth before you showed up again.”
“I know,” he replied hoarsely, his guilt clear.
Tears filled my eyes. “I shouldn’t care. I’m twenty-eight. I’ve lived my entire adult life without you, and I’m lucky because I genuinely like myself and who I am … but after I got shot, I realized I’d never stopped wondering what it was about me that wasn’t lovable to you.”
“Oh, Robyn, no—”
“I didn’t become a cop because of Seth. I thought I did. But when they told me my heart stopped in surgery, it hit me that I would’ve died for a job I only pursued to feel closer to a man who didn’t even know I was on an operating table, fighting for my life.”
Mac’s eyes were bright, his devastation clear and confusing for me.
I gestured to him. “See … I don’t get it. I don’t get how you could leave me all those years if you feel something for me.”
“I love you,” he whispered harshly. “You are my daughter, and I have loved you from the moment the doctor put you in my arms as a wee bairn.”
“Then where were you when I needed you!” It exploded out of me like I was a slow-burning stick of dynamite, much closer to detonating than I’d even realized.
With the hurt and resentment came painful sobs I yelled through.
“Where were you when my boyfriend assaulted me when I was fifteen? Where were you when Josh Horner broke my heart when I was twenty? Where were you when I graduated from the police academy? Where were you when I was shot three times in the chest? Where were you every time Mom gave me a hard time? Every time she made it clear I had to work my ass off to prove to her that I wasn’t you?
Where were you every moment I felt unbearably alone! ”
My father cried, silently, his hand covering his mouth as my pain swelled inside the room.
I breathed hard, shocked not only by my lack of control but by the force of my anger. It had been buried so long, I hadn’t even acknowledged how mammoth it was.
Like a dragon finally unleashed.
It was out there.
Breathing fire.
No taking it back.
“Mom never made me feel good enough. Don’t get me wrong, she’s told me she’s proud of me in the past. But it always comes with a ‘but.’ I can always do better.
And you leaving me just proved her right.
No matter how many times Seth or Regan tried to tell me different, tried to love me enough for the both of you, I’ve spent my whole life fighting the feeling of being not good enough, not lovable enough.
Because of you. And because of her. But you were worse, Dad.
” The tears fell anew. “Because she has always made me work hard for her love, but when I was little, you didn’t.
I thought there was no one like you. You were my hero, and no kid could have loved you harder than I loved you. ”
He moved. Quickly. Was at my side, pulling me into his arms.
We shook against each other, my soft sobs, his wrecked breathing, and I tried to let him take my hurt, my pain, but I was afraid it was so much a part of me, I’d never be rid of it.
The room was quiet. It was a different kind of silence from before. Less angry. But still tense.
Mac cried.
I’d never seen my dad cry before.
It was beyond disconcerting to see a big, tough guy like Mac weep.
I wanted to understand. I wanted to believe him when he said he loved me. More than I’d ever wanted to believe anyone who’d said it to me.
Worried about his injuries, I’d forced him to sit back in his armchair. I’d brought my chair closer to his, so it didn’t feel like we had a massive stretch of space between us. We studied each other. I was probably a mess. I didn’t care.
“Before I tell you this”—Mac broke the silence, making me a jolt a little—“you have to know that I take the blame too. I should have tried harder. I should have taken your mum to court and fought for my parental rights.”
I stiffened, wondering where this was going. Lachlan’s words about my mom flitted through my mind and made my pulse skitter.
Mac released a shaky exhale. “I was so sure that because of my job, I would never get joint custody. And I didn’t want to quit my job as a bodyguard because I made the kind of money that not only paid child support but it paid for your college education.”
I knew that. Mom hadn’t kept that from me. But I had an awful feeling she’d kept something else.
“However,” Mac said, leaning toward me, “I’m not going to lie to you, Robyn.
You’ve had enough of that, and if I’d even thought for one second you felt the way you felt …
” He shook his head, taking another shaky breath.
He met my gaze directly. “I won’t tell you I wasn’t a scared-shitless kid when we had you.
Or that I loved your mother. I didn’t. I’ve always been a big guy.
Even as a kid, I was bigger than all the other kids, grew up in a tough part of Glasgow, and I looked and acted older because of it.
I won’t go into the details, but I made a habit of going after older girls, older women.
I was only fifteen when I met your mum.”
“And you lied about your age.”
He nodded. “I told her I was eighteen. She was nineteen. Not only did I lie to her about my age but I was an arrogant wee shit, and I admit, I assumed she felt how I felt. That it was just physical, and that she didn’t mean it when she said she loved me—it was just something people said …
” Mac’s gaze intensified. “You have no idea how much you changed me. I had no one. My dad died of a heroin overdose when I was eight. I found him.”
“Jesus.” I hadn’t known that about my grandfather. I didn’t know much at all about my dad. More sadness seeped through me. “I’m so sorry.”
“We were close. My mum took off just after I was born, so I didn’t know her.
But Dad couldn’t shake his addiction, and it got worse over the years.
He wanted to kick it. We tried to get him help, but drugs are a massive problem here.
Anyway, the withdrawals were so bad, he couldn’t stand it.
When he died, his mum took me in, but she was already caring for my aunt and her two kids.
We were crammed in a small high-rise flat, and I was left to my own devices.
I fell in with the wrong crowd, and we did some not-very-nice things. ”