Seeing her car in her drive, he relaxed marginally, but it didn’t show in his charging strides as he hurried to the front door and pressed the doorbell.
Lachlan’s calm did not come when minutes later she still hadn’t answered the door.
He tried the bell again.
Stepping back from it, he stared into the front windows, searching for movement. Nothing. Following the paving stones around the house, he made his way into the decent-size back garden that Arro had spruced up with decking and a seating area off the kitchen. Designated veg, fruit, and potato patches had been planted in the back near the greenhouse.
After knocking on the kitchen door, he peered into the patio windows and was dismayed to find no sign of her. Then he noted the open laptop on the kitchen table next to a half-eaten sandwich and a cup of coffee.
She was in there.
Well enough to eat and work.
But not answer the door?
Truly concerned, Lachlan tried the doorknob and was relieved and annoyed in equal measure when it opened. Arro lived alone. Her doors should always be locked. Yes, they resided in one of the safest villages in Scotland, but (1) she was an Adair, and (2) he had a stalker after him willing to try to hurt—or kill—those he loved.
Once he’d given her a rollicking for worrying him, he’d lecture her about locking her doors.
“Arro!” he called as he moved through the kitchen. “It’s Lachlan!”
He heard a shuffling and followed the sound out of the kitchen toward the bedrooms at the back. “Arro!”
“I’m here.” Her voice was muffled through her bedroom door. “I’m sick. I don’t want to infect anyone.”
Frowning at the obvious lie, he stopped at her door and tapped his knuckles lightly against it. “Arro, what’s going on, sweetheart? I’m worried.”
“I told you. I’m not well. Flu.”
“Flu? You told Marcello it was food poisoning. What’s going on? Why are you hiding and not answering your phone?”
There was silence on the other side of the door. Then … “If I come out … you have to promise you won’t fly off the handle. That you won’t do anything stupid.”
“Arro,” he said, a warning in his voice.
“Promise me, Lachlan.”
“I promise,” he bit out.
Yet, when she stepped out of her bedroom, it was hard to remember the promise over the roaring in his ears.
“What the goddamn fuck?” His words were low but rough with fury.
His sister, his precious, wouldn’t-hurt-a-bloody-fly, wee sister was sporting a black eye, bruised cheekbone, and a cut lip.
Someone is going to die today.
At his expression, Arrochar’s eyes widened, and she held up her hands as if to placate him. “Calm down, Lachlan. Please.”
“Not until you tell me what I’m looking at.”
“First, you have to know this has never happened before.” Her voice trembled, and he could see she struggled not to cry. “This is the first time, and I broke up with him. I promise.”
He stumbled back from her, his rage building. “Guy did this?”
That fucker was over.
Storming toward the front door, he felt a tug on his arm and whirled to shake off his sister when the sight of her flinching back, afraid, put out his surface anger like a bucket of ice water.
Emotion thickened in his throat as he took in Arro’s battered face. “I would never hurt you.”
Tears brightened her eyes. “God, I know that. But please calm down. Please.”
Struggling to slow his breathing as his heart thundered in his chest, Lachlan attempted to, for her sake. He held out his hand to her like she was a frightened animal.
Arro walked into him, burrowing against him in a way she hadn’t since she was a wee girl.
He felt a burning in his eyes as he embraced her, knowing he probably held her too tight but was unable to loosen his arms. Someone had beaten his sister, and not only had Lachlan not been there to protect her but he’d had a civil conversation with the bastard that very morning.
Yesterday he’d been screwing around with Robyn, and his sister was holed up in her house.
Scared.
And beaten.
“Tell me what happened,” he whispered against her hair.
Arrochar eased away from him, eyes lowered to the ground as she motioned to the kitchen.
Lachlan tried to be patient as she forced him to wait until he’d made a fresh pot of coffee.
“It was after the ceilidh,” she finally divulged as she sat down with him at the dining table. “He seemed fine at the Gloaming. Drunk, but fine. But he was quiet on the walk back to my place. Then it all just came at me as soon as we stepped in the house.”
“What did?” He tried not to imagine it. His sister alone with that bastard, no clue what was about to happen. That there was no one there to protect her.
Arro licked her lips nervously and stared past him out the window. “Apparently, I spent all night flirting with Mac, which is ridiculous. It’s Mac, for goodness’ sake. Guy has gotten it into his head there’s something going on between us. Can you believe that? He started yelling about my behavior when Mac was attacked. I told him he was wrong. It’s Mac. He’s … he’s … family. And I’d never cheat.” Now she looked at him. Right in the eye. “I’d never cheat, Lachlan.”
He knew she wouldn’t.
Disloyalty wasn’t in the Adair blood. “I know, sweetheart.”
Anger flooded her features. “I called him an arsehole and he pushed me into the wall. I lost my temper and pushed him back and told him to get out and never call me again. Then all this rubbish started pouring out of him, how I always made him feel like an outsider, like he wasn’t good enough, that I thought I was better than him, that I was an untouchable Adair.” She blinked back tears. “I don’t even know what that means. It was like listening to a petty little boy on the school playground trying to tear me down because he was jealous of me. Ridiculous and immature. My reaction wasn’t very nice. I laughed at him and said he was pathetic … and that was the wrong thing to do.”
Lachlan studied her face, hot blood causing a haze in his mind that he was trying very hard to beat back. “He hit you.”
She pressed a tentative finger to her cheek. “Blindsided me. Hit me so hard, it took me down, and then he climbed on me to hit me a couple more times. He only got the other two hits in because the first had shocked me, dazed me. But I got my faculties together, spotted the paperweight on the table, and managed to shove him off me long enough to grab it. When he came at me, I cracked him over the head with it.
“The drink, the hit, it knocked him out but only for seconds. When he came to, it was like he was a different person. Like he couldn’t believe what he’d done. He tried to plead with me, told me he loved me”—she guffawed angrily—“but I told him to get out or I would call the police.”
“You should have called the police,” Lachlan said, trying not to raise his voice.
“I was ashamed.” Her face crumpled and she sobbed, cries that tore through his gut.
Getting out of his chair, Lachlan pulled his sister up and held her while she cried, reassuring her she had nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to worry about, that he’d take care of everything.