Chapter 35 Mac
MAC
Ihurried through the hospital corridors, ignoring the ache from my wounds as one task consumed me.
Get to Arro.
By the time I’d bullied the doctor into sending security away and discharging me, I got the call from Lachlan that Arro was safe but in shock. She was already in an ambulance on her way to Inverness, following the ambulance that carried Guy Lewis.
She’d hit him with her car.
I needed to know what else had happened.
I needed to know if she was okay.
What could have happened haunted me as I charged through the hospital. I wasn’t there to protect her. Had I failed her? Did I deserve to know if she was safe?
Don’t, an internal voice fought me. You’re wounded from protecting her.
No one saw this coming, right?
Or had I just been so relieved to enjoy the idea of a peaceful future with Arro that I’d grown lax and dropped my hold on professional paranoia?
I blew through double doors and was in the loud, controlled chaos of the emergency department. Searching the waiting area for faces I recognized, I spotted Robyn standing against the wall, glaring anxiously around her.
Hurrying toward my daughter, I drew her gaze, and her lips parted in surprise. She stormed toward me. “No, you should be in bed.”
“Where is she?” I snapped impatiently.
Robyn raised an eyebrow. “Dad, she’s fine. But you’re recovering from bullet wounds, and since I know how that feels, I also know you shouldn’t be running around like a madman.”
“I need to see Arro, Robbie, so help me or get out of my way, wee birdie.”
She sighed. “This way.”
Following her, heart racing in my chest, every second seemed like an hour before she led us to a nurse.
“Hey, we spoke earlier. You checked in my sister-in-law, Arrochar Adair. Can you tell me where she and my husband went?”
The nurse glanced behind Robyn at me. “Immediate family only. She’s with a consultant.”
I stepped forward belligerently, my usual calm and patience gone. “I’m her—” Fuck! Boyfriend sounded so juvenile and impermanent. “Hers,” I decided with a glower.
The nurse gave me an unimpressed look, and Robyn raised her hands, palm out. “Apologies for my dad. He’s actually recovering from bullet wounds and just got discharged to come find his … Arro.” She shrugged.
“Wait.” The nurse cocked her head. “Arrochar Adair is your sister-in-law, but she’s also your father’s girlfriend?”
“That better not be judgment I hear.” Robyn looked up at me. “Did you hear a tone of judgment?”
“Oh, no, not judging, just fascinating.” The nurse studied me thoroughly. “To be fair, you don’t look old enough to have fathered this one.” She gestured to Robyn.
“Arro,” I bit out impatiently, like a fucking caveman. Then, because I had much respect for health care workers, I added, “Please.”
“Right, right.” She nodded. “This way. The doctor might not let you in, though.”
As we followed her, Robyn shook her head. “I swear, the next person who tells me you don’t look old enough to have fathered me, I’m gonna pop their head right off.”
“I heard that,” the nurse threw over her shoulder.
I was barely listening. “Robbie.”
“Dad, she was fine. A little banged up, but fine. Stop panicking.”
“If it was Lachlan, how would you feel right now?”
“Yeah, okay, point taken.”
The nurse stopped at a door and knocked before entering. “Dr. Braemyre—oof!”
I barged past the nurse, zeroing in on Arro, who sat on a bed, her legs dangling over the side. She had a blood pressure band around her biceps, a cut lip, and her left eye was almost swollen shut.
If Guy Lewis wasn’t dead yet, he was about to be.
“Sir!” the doctor protested, but I ignored them all and rushed to Arro.
She grabbed onto me, pulling on my T-shirt in desperation until we had our arms around each other. Her trembling body fired my rage.
“Leave them be.” I heard Lachlan say behind us. I hadn’t even noticed him in the room.
After a while, the doctor said, “Sir, I really need to continue examining Ms. Adair.”
Reluctantly, I released her, but at the haunted look on her face, I stayed beside her, leaning against the bed as I held her hand.
The doc glanced back and forth between us and then sighed before he finished taking Arro’s blood pressure.
“You said you hit your back too?” the doc asked.
Her back?
I frowned as she nodded and lifted her shirt. Glancing behind her as the doc did, I hissed at the large bruise on her lower back. The doc examined it and shook his head. “It doesn’t appear to be anything to worry about. But if you notice any blood in the urine, I want you back here immediately.”
Arro nodded quietly. Too quiet.
The doc touched her chin, tilting her head up as he shone a penlight in her eyes. He switched it off and gave her a reassuring smile. “No sign of concussion.”
“What about earlier?” Lachlan asked, and I noticed him for the first time. He looked haggard and pale, his features tight.
That put me back on alert.
“Arro was practically catatonic when I got to her.”
“Shock does that.” The doctor looked back at Arro. “Your blood pressure is low, which happens after an adrenaline crash. The shaking and dizziness you said you experienced is low blood sugar.” He looked to Lachlan and Robyn. “A wee bit of chocolate might not go amiss.”
“On it.” Robyn slipped out of the room.
“I’m really okay,” Arro finally spoke, and everything in me relaxed with relief. “It was just shock,” she reassured Lachlan. Her lips trembled. “Is … do we know how Guy is? Are they going to arrest me?”
I squeezed her hand harder. What the hell had happened out there?
“No,” Lachlan bit out angrily. “No, they’ll have to go through me and the ten thousand lawyers I’m about to hire.”
“Lachlan …” Arro gave him a sad smile. “You can’t protect me from everything.”
“He tried to murder you,” Lachlan hissed. “There is no way anyone is arresting you for defending yourself.”
“He’s right,” I added, pulling her close. “It’ll never happen.”
“I will note every one of your injuries,” Dr. Braemyre added, his tone kind, his gaze maybe a wee bit too soft on Arro for my liking, but I’d forgive him for it. “I’ll make sure it’s comprehensive enough that the police get a real picture of what you went through today.”
“Doctor, are you able to give us an update on the bast—on Lewis?” I asked.
He gave me a regretful shake of his head. “I can only give that information to immediate family. Now, I’m afraid the police have asked to come in and speak with you after my examination.”
“It’s fine.” Arro nodded, but she squeezed my hand until it was almost painful. I gently slid my arm around her, pulling her to my side.
We waited in silence for the police to come into the room. By that point, Arro nibbled the chocolate bar Robyn brought her, but just barely, like she didn’t have the stomach for anything.
Throughout the police interview, it took everything I had not to march out of that room and hunt that piece of scum Lewis down.
“So you fought him off and got into your vehicle?” the female constable asked gently.
“Yes. I was trying to reverse, swing the car around, and I clipped him by accident as I tried to drive out.”
“What was Lewis doing before you hit him?”
“He was coming for me.”
“So he was still in pursuit?”
“Yes.”
“Do you—” The male constable was cut off by his colleague when she said, “I think we have all we need.”
He pressed his lips tight and nodded in agreement.
The woman gave Arro a once-over, something flickering in her expression. “I’m sorry for what you’ve been through today, Ms. Adair. We’ll be in touch.”
“Can you tell me if he’s okay?” Arro asked, tears brightening her eyes. “I just want to know that I didn’t …”
The constable gave her a sympathetic nod. “Mr. Lewis has sustained some injuries, but the doctor said he’ll recover. He’s under arrest. We have constables stationed in his room. That’s all I can tell you just now.”
“Thank you,” Arro whispered, slumping with relief.
“Aye.” I reached out to shake the woman’s hand. “Thank you.” She’d been kind, not drawing out the questioning or coercing Arro into admitting some kind of blame for what had happened.
She shook my hand with an abrupt nod, and the constables left us alone.
Lachlan held Robyn by his side as he exhaled slowly. “Let’s see about getting you discharged and home. I don’t know about all of you, but I could do with a rather large whisky.”
I just wanted to be alone with Arro, but I understood that being around her family was probably what she needed.
Nodding, I stood and helped Arro off the bed.
She winced from some invisible hurt, and I forced myself not to think about the fact that Guy was in the hospital.
Arro was what mattered. Not murdering that bastard.
Though I’d like to, and I would without compunction …
if it weren’t for her. She (and Robyn) needed me not to be in jail.
Sliding my arm around her slight shoulders, I held on to Arro as we searched for the doctor. It seemed to take too long to get her discharged, and as we waited, she leaned her entire weight into me and whispered, “Can you take me back to yours? I just want to be with you.”
Emotion thickened my throat as I pressed my cheek to her forehead and whispered, “Anything you want, darlin’. I’ll give you anything you want.”
Later, despite the protestations of her overprotective big brother, Arro and I found ourselves alone in my house, lying in my bed, arms and legs entwined. I kept a tea towel filled with ice pressed to her swollen eye as we held each other. For a long time.
And then her voice cut through the silence. “You can take this off for a while.” She covered my hand holding the ice to her face. “The doctor said to ice it every twenty minutes or so.”
I nodded. “Need fresh ice, anyway.” I dropped the wet towel on the floor. I’d deal with it when I got up.
“You better not take any of this on yourself, Mackennon.”
“I’m not,” I promised her. It was difficult because it was second nature to see it as a failure, but I wouldn’t let those kinds of thoughts come between us.
“I’m proud of you,” I told her gruffly. “You have so much strength in you, Arro. So much fire and fight. I’ve never been more thankful for it. ”
She drew in a shuddering breath. “I’m glad that’s who I became at that moment … but I don’t know if I’d feel that way if I’d killed him.”
I lifted my head as she tilted hers up to meet my gaze. “If you’d killed him, it would have been self-defense. And I wouldn’t be sorry for it.”
“Have you killed anyone, Mackennon?”
I nodded. “When I was a police officer.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered tearfully. “I hate that for you.”
“It was self-defense. Kill or be killed. Doesn’t make it any easier, but it’s the one thing in my life I won’t take the blame for.
He put me in that position when he fired his gun at me.
Just like Guy put you in that position when he attacked you.
Be at peace with it, Arro, because if it had turned out differently, if he’d …
” I couldn’t bear thinking about it. “If he’d hurt you … I would have killed him.”
Her gaze sharpened. “You don’t mean that.”
“Do you remember the rage you felt when faced with Roisin Bankman?”
Understanding dawned. “Yes.”
“Then you understand how I feel right now and how I would’ve felt if he’d stolen my future with you.”
She nodded slowly. “But I’m here, Mackennon. I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere.” Humor suddenly lit her expression. “Unless, of course, there are more skeletons in the Adair closets, just waiting to terrorize us.”
I groaned. “Don’t, you’ll jinx us.”
Arro laughed lightly, the sound a bright relief.
Then, “What happens now? There’ll be a trial, won’t there?”
“Aye. Another one.”
“We’re going to be experts at this soon.”
“Hey.” I tilted her chin back up. “We won’t live our lives with this hanging over us. There will be a trial, and we’ll deal with it as it happens. But for now, we’re moving on. Together.”
“I want to build a house in Caelmore with you,” Arro blurted out.
My lips twitched. My Arro, impatient and passionate. “Oh, really?”
She sat up a little, countenance brightening, and I was glad for the distraction.
“What do you think? We could choose a plot a little farther down the coast from the boys. Design it exactly to our specifications. We could put in a gym so you don’t have to get up so early to use the one at the castle.
Sea views. A proper library for all our books where I can finally host our book club. ”
I grinned at her growing excitement. “Our book club?”
She nodded, already far away, building the house in her mind. “I’ve always wanted a proper chef’s kitchen too.” Arro’s gaze turned back to me. “Maybe a shower big enough for sex.”
“Oh, I like that idea.” I caressed her hip as she seemed to slump, battling the exhaustion the attack had left her with. “We’ll talk about it later, darlin’.”
“But you want to?”
“I can’t think of anything better,” I promised, brushing a soft kiss against her lips.
She let all her love shine out of her. “Maybe two kids’ bedrooms?”
The thought filled me with equal amounts of terror and anticipation. “Sounds like a plan.”
Arro relaxed against the pillows, eyelids drooping. “I didn’t just fight for me today,” she confessed softly. “I fought for that. Our future. Us.”
I settled in closer, the ache in my chest a pleasure pain. “I know.”
“I love you so much.”
For once, I didn’t question whether I deserved to be loved by this extraordinary woman. Instead, I allowed myself to feel nothing but awe and gratitude that I was.
“I’ll love you forever,” I promised, pulling her close, feeling her melt in love and trust in my arms, allowing sleep to drift over her with me to guard her and her dreams.