He leaned against his desk, crossing one ankle over the other, folding his arms over his chest. “And yet I got the distinct impression you were ready to lecture me for running in it.”
Arrochar scowled as she yanked the zip of her jacket down and shrugged out of it. Luckily, knowing how to dress for Scottish weather, her raincoat kept her sweater dry underneath. She threw the coat over a chair and then rested her hands on her hips. “I don’t care about you running in the rain. I care about the fact that I said I was coming over to share lunch with you, and you deliberately made sure you weren’t here.”
Shit. He shook his head apologetically. “Arro, I forgot.”
“Did you?” she said disbelievingly. “Or are you just avoiding everyone who loves you?”
“Arro,” he warned.
“No. Every time someone tries to bring it up, you snarl at them like a big beast and we all back off. Well, I’m done backing off.”
“It’s been a month. Give me a chance.”
“Why? So you can screw up your life even further by waiting too long to fix things?”
“Arro … I mean it.”
His sister lifted her elfin chin in defiance. “Let me ask you something, and I want an honest answer.”
He sighed impatiently.
She forged ahead anyway. “Do you love Robyn?”
Agitation screamed in his nerve endings.
“Jesus Christ, Lachlan.” Arrochar shook her head at him. “As well as I know you, I can’t tell what you’re thinking half the time. But whatever you feel for Robyn is so big, you can’t mask it. I say her name, and the way you feel is right there for everybody to see.”
A walking wound.
Pride pricked, he glowered.
“If you love her, why are you not on a plane as we speak, heading to Boston to get her back?”
“I tried to get her back,” he snapped. “I told her I loved her, and she made it clear she didn’t believe me and she left.”
“And you let her?” Arrochar looked aghast and not a little disappointed in him.
That was all he needed. “Bloody hell, Arrochar, dig the knife in deeper, why don’t you?”
“Oh, I bloody will.” She stepped toward him. “The Lachlan I know wouldn’t just give up. He goes after the things he wants. He always has. He’s a man I have always hero-worshipped and respected.”
“Well, maybe I’m not him,” he barked. “Maybe that man never existed. Playing a hero on the screen doesn’t make me one, Arro. I’m just a man. As it turns out, a bloody ordinary one at that. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I just don’t deserve her?”
His sister looked stunned.
Then understanding softened her expression. “Lachlan.”
“Just leave me alone, sweetheart,” he whispered hoarsely. “Please.”
“No.” She shook her head. “No, not if that’s the rubbish you’ve got percolating in your head right now … Do you know what one of my best memories is?”
He didn’t answer.
“I was ten, and it was the school Christmas dance. Shannon Wright slowly turned our group of friends against me. Sniffing at me like I smelled of BO, telling people she’d seen lice in my hair … stupid mean-girl stuff that was way worse for me in primary school than it ever was in high school.”
“She was jealous of you.”
“I didn’t know that then, though. And back then, it was the end of the bloody world. I didn’t want to go to the dance, but Dad said I had to because it was the Christmas ceilidh and as leading members of the community, the Adairs always had to represent. Like I knew what that meant at ten.” She smirked.
Lachlan’s lips quirked. He remembered his father giving him the same speech throughout his childhood.
“I was crying in my room that day,” Arrochar went on. “And you came in and found me and asked me what was wrong. I told you about Shannon and about Dad making me go, even though everyone hated me. And you, a seventeen-year-old boy, broke off a date to escort me to the dance.” Her eyes brightened with sentiment. “I walked in there with my big, handsome brother, and they all thought it was so cool that you came for me, that I had a brother like you. All my friends had mega crushes on you, and you were nice to them for me, even though they’d been horrible because you knew I just wanted things back to normal. Shannon was completely forgotten.
“And there’s more. When Dad died, I couldn’t get watching him die out of my head. And it was you who pulled me out of that black hole, Lachlan. You wouldn’t leave my side. You reminded me every day that I wasn’t alone. My big brother always coming to my rescue. Whether it was a stupid wee school dance or when I was in the darkest place of my life—or when I was ashamed because a man I trusted hit me.
“I don’t think of myself as a woman who needs taking care of, but everybody needs someone in their lives who makes them feel safe, who makes them feel like they’re not alone and who makes them feel important.” She crossed the distance between them, resting her hand on his arm. “You are that person for me, and for all of us. No matter if we’re here or on a film shoot or fuck knows where,” she said wryly, referring to Brodan and Arran, “knowing our big brother is always there for us, is always our safe harbor, is always the one who cares, it makes all the hard days so much easier.”
Emotion clogged his throat. “Christ, Arro.” He grabbed at her hand, curling it into his chest.
“I know what happened has affected you more than any of us can understand … but I never want you to doubt the man you are. You are a man confident in who you are, the good you have in you, the things that are important to you, and the things you are capable of. Don’t lose that. You’re my hero, Lachlan Adair, and I defy anybody to say otherwise.”
Chest aching with his sister’s words, Lachlan tugged at her hand. “What if … what if she left me because I’m not that person for her?”
Arrochar shook her head. “Do you honestly believe that’s who Robyn is? That she would think that of you?”
Swimming against the tide of the dark insecurities Lucy’s betrayal had stirred, Lachlan pushed them aside and found the truth. Arro was right. That wasn’t who Robyn was. “Then why did she leave?”
“Probably—and I say this with as much gentleness as I can because I love you and don’t want to hurt you—because you let her leave without a fight.”
He flinched.
“Words don’t mean anything, Lachlan. I think we both know Robyn respects action over words. You can tell her that you love her until you’re blue in the face … but until you actually get up off your arse and show her what she means to you … she’s never going to believe you.”
His numbness had slowly thawed over the last few minutes, and now he felt it fall away entirely. Pulling his sister into his embrace, he hugged her hard. “Thank you, sweetheart.”
“It’s just payback, big brother,” she whispered. “Time for us to have your back”—his sister eased from his arms and grinned up at him—“while you go after what you want.”
40