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.”
He lowered his eyes, but I’d caught the shadows in them. “Gran eventually stepped in, knowing I would eventually either end up in prison or dead. She contacted my uncle who’d moved to the States years ago. He had a garage in Boston, did all right for himself. He agreed to take me in but told me if I started any nonsense, I’d be out on my ear. Not long after arriving there, I got your mum pregnant.
“I knew as soon as she told me that I wouldn’t run. I wouldn’t do to my kid what my mum had done to me.” He grimaced. “But I did it eventually, to my utter regret.”
“Mac …”
He shook his head. “Anyway, my uncle said I had to get my shit together, needed a goal, a proper career. He had a friend on the police force. Told me if I went to community college, worked for my GED, that I could eventually apply to the academy when I was twenty-one and he’d help me get in. So I worked in the garage for my uncle, and I studied part time. Then you were born.” His eyes filled with a light that took my breath away. “For the first time in my life, I had purpose. You, Robyn. I have never loved anyone the way I love you. Those have never been easy words for me to say, except with you.”
I remembered.
He used to tell me all the time he loved me.
Renewed tears slipped down my cheeks.
His sad eyes tracked them. “I tried to make things work with your mum, but we were just too different. And she never forgave me for lying about my age.”
“Did she love you?”
“Aye, I eventually realized that she did. But she was also caustic and argumentative and controlling. I brought out the worst in her. And I … I was still so young. While I’d never been allowed to be a kid, looking back, I realize emotionally, I was. I was just a kid. Still, as scary as it was, I loved being your dad. But I wasn’t ready to be a husband. Stacey and I didn’t last long. We were only together for about a year after you were born, and then I got you every other weekend and alternating holidays.”
“I remember.”
“I met Seth a few years before I joined the police academy and introduced him to your mum and everything was better for a while. They got pregnant with Regan quite quickly, but Stacey was different. Happier.” His features tightened as he looked over my shoulder, lost in his memories it seemed. “I’d been training in jiujitsu since I was eighteen, and I started RBSD during my time on the force. I was pretty good at the former—I don’t know if you remember?”
I remembered. Dad was being modest. He’d won the US national championship in jiujitsu three years running and had wanted me to learn, but Mom was against it. Said I was too young. As for the RBSD training, I hadn’t known about that. Reality-based self-defense was a style of martial arts originally developed by a soldier turned cop for close combat situations. I was sure it, Mac’s police training, and his championship wins looked good on a résumé for someone in need of a bodyguard.