She straightened, casting him one last disdainful look. “So don’t you think for one second your opinion has any effect on my self-esteem.”
Lachlan was stunned silent.
Not just because of her words.
But because of how they made him feel in places he had no right feeling with regard to Robyn Penhaligon.
As he watched her stride away pushing the wheelchair, tight ass swaying with her swagger, he cursed under his breath.
It took him a minute to gather himself before he could turn back to the Range Rover and get in. Avoiding Mac’s eyes, he started the engine and swung the car out of the parking space.
More awkward silence hung between them.
“You do let her get to you, don’t you,” Mac broke in, sounding half amused, half unimpressed by Lachlan’s lack of self-control.
“I can’t help it.” His hands squeezed the wheel. “She’s irritating. No offense.”
He could feel Mac’s penetrating, relentless stare.
“What?” he snapped, throwing the man an aggravated look before returning his focus to the road.
“Nothing.”
“Not nothing. You’re thinking something.”
Mac sighed. “The two of you remind me of me and Donna Ferguson in the playground when we were eight years old.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’d pull her pigtails to get her attention. She’d trip me when I was running past her.”
“I’m still not getting it.” It was a lie. Lachlan knew exactly what Mac was getting at. His stomach churned at the thought.
“Let me be clearer,” Mac said, his voice hardening. “I have no right to interfere in Robyn’s life … but be careful, Lachlan. Be very careful.”
Tension tightened his shoulders, and he threw Mac another look.
His friend wore a taut expression of warning.
Lachlan expelled another exasperated breath. “Oh bloody Nora, Mac, you know you have nothing to worry about on that account.”
Mac’s answer was a disbelieving grunt.
The silence fell between them again, tense and uneasy.
Damn the woman, Lachlan thought hotly. He wished she’d never shown her face at Ardnoch.
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.”