Robyn grinned. “Great place for yoga, right?”
Definitely. “So is your new backyard, though.”
My sister chuckled because it was true and then knocked on the door to the first and largest cabin.
“Come in!” a feminine, American-accented voice called.
We stepped into a large, rectangular room with mirrors along the wall opposite the door. The wall to our left was made entirely of glass, revealing a spectacular and tranquil view over the loch. Mats and other equipment were stored on the back wall to our right on floor-to-ceiling shelving.
Standing in the middle of the room, hands on hips and a small smile on her face, was Eredine Willows.
Even though Robyn and I were fairly tall, Eredine was taller. I guessed at least five ten. She was stunning with dark brown curls I watched her pile into a large topknot. With smooth, golden-brown skin and hazel eyes so light they almost looked green, I guessed her to be around my age, but I wasn’t sure.
Robyn had given me a quick catch-up in the car. She knew little about Eredine’s past, but she knew that the young woman was good friends with Lucy Wainwright and had taken her betrayal hard. I was strictly not to mention the Oscar-winning actor who was currently in jail, awaiting trial for almost killing my sister.
The thought made me flinch as Robyn and Eredine chatted while setting up the wrestling mat. When Mom and Dad told me about Robyn and Lucy—when I saw the news splashed across tabloids—I’d felt distant from it as much as the thought of it horrified me. Now, being here, seeing my sister alive but how affected she and her friends were by Lucy’s homicidal behavior, a simmering rage burned in my gut.
They better put that woman away for life, or I might be tempted to kill her myself.
“So, Regan, what is it you do?” Eredine asked with a friendly smile as she straightened from helping Robyn.
“She’s a vagabond,” Robyn answered with a slight bite to her tone.
I glowered at my sister before smoothing my expression into bland politeness. “I’m a nanny, though without a position at the moment.”
“So that’s your profession now?” Robyn raised an eyebrow.
Trying not to let her goad me, I shrugged. “Well, it’s the job I’ve been employed in the most.”
She snorted, giving me a dirty look.
“It is,” I insisted. “Why are you being such a bitch?”
Eredine sucked in a breath.
Robyn narrowed her eyes. “In front of Eredine, really?”
“You started it with the tone.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re being passive-aggressive, and it’s not like you.”
“I guess we’re both acting unlike ourselves, then.”
“Is this how it’s going to be the entire time I’m here?” I huffed, crossing my arms as I noted Eredine sneak toward the exit. I didn’t blame her. We’d just invaded her space and immediately started arguing. I couldn’t even be embarrassed about it, I was so mad.
And I wasn’t the only one.
Robyn’s face turned red. My sister was a slow burn. She rarely lost her shit, but when she did, it was explosive.
She detonated. “You left me six weeks after I got shot, and I barely heard from you again in over a year!”
I flinched at her shriek. It was filled with so much pain and anger, emotions she’d clearly buried deep because I had never seen my sister look so unraveled. Not even after she got shot.
And I’d done that to her.
A sob burst up from my gut, and I covered my mouth as it tried to escape.
The door closed softly behind Eredine.
“Don’t.” Robyn pointed a finger at me, tears blurring her vision. “Don’t you cry when you’re the one who wronged me.”
I nodded, covering my face with my hands as I sobbed in a choked voice. “I know.”
Yet as much as I tried, I couldn’t hold back eighteen months’ worth of tears. Instead, I stumbled back, hitting the wall as my legs gave out and I slid to the floor. “I’m sorry,” I managed before I hid my face in my knees and cried. Robyn wasn’t the only one who’d bottled everything up. Easy-breezy Regan had fled the building.
Hyperaware of my sister’s movements, she slid down the wall, her shoulder touching mine as she settled beside me.
“Talk to me,” she whispered hoarsely. “I was always the one you talked to. I don’t understand what changed.”
Hearing her voice break forced me to pull myself together. I lifted my head out of my knees and swiped at my face, seeing the black mascara streaks across my fingers and not giving a shit. Meeting Robyn’s teary gaze, I repeated, “I’m so sorry.”
“I appreciate the apology.” She tucked a strand of loose hair behind my ear, a gesture that was so heartbreakingly familiar, I struggled to hold back more tears. It had been so long since Robyn had been willingly affectionate with me. And it was all my fault. “But I want to know why. It’s never made sense to me, Ree. One minute we were as close as two sisters could be, and the next you were halfway around the world avoiding my calls. For eighteen months.”
I took a shuddering breath. “Have you ever done something? Something you regretted, but fear kept you stuck in the same cycle of repetition that you just didn’t know how to break?”
Robyn narrowed her eyes as she contemplated me.
I gave her a sad smirk. “No. You’d never let that happen. You’re not a coward, like me.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s the truth.” I shrugged angrily and looked out the window, not wanting to see her expression as I finally explained myself. “You know when we were kids, I never thought it was weird that when I got hurt or upset, you were the person I wanted, not Mom or Dad. I wanted to spend all my time with you. As we got older, I realized other kids needed their parents more than their siblings. Not me.” I shook my head, smirking through watery tears. “I was the weirdo who depended on my big sister like everyone else depended on their mom and dad.”
I heard Robyn’s breathing change and turned to see the tears brighten her eyes.
That set me off again, so I looked away. “You know I love Mom and Dad. I’m not saying I don’t … but I needed you in a way I didn’t need them. Adored you. You were as much my hero as Dad was. Maybe more. Everything was always bright and shiny in my world as long as I had you.” Remembering the phone call from my dad, the one where he told me Robyn was in critical condition after being shot three times in the chest, I shuddered. I’d never experienced terror like it. Even after what I’d been through since, nothing had come close to the fear that paralyzed me when I thought Robyn might die.
“When you got shot … I … I saw you hooked up to those machines, tubes coming out of you, breathing for you, and the doctors said you’d died on the table and you might not wake up …” I met her anguished gaze. “Something switched off inside me. Like my mind couldn’t cope with the fear or something … I don’t know.” Shame swamped me. “I realized, I guess, that so much of my happiness depended on your existence. It freaked me out. I … I don’t know how to explain it. It just sounds pathetic and cowardly.”