“News?” Thane whispered.
Lachlan reached out to stroke Eilidh’s hair as he replied quietly, “Seth is distraught, as you can imagine. They didn’t have the manpower or authority to keep someone on Austin at all times back in Boston. The last they saw him, he went into a property three days ago belonging to his brother. No one tailed him to the airport. Seth had an alert on his credit card, but he didn’t use it to pay for a ticket. He didn’t use any of his brother’s credit cards either, so we assume he used cash.”
“Regan mentioned a PI?”
Lachlan nodded. “Mac’s still looking into that.”
“Have they found Vale?”
His brother shook his head. “Search and rescue are still out looking.”
Eilidh shifted in his arms, and he cuddled her closer. “When can Regan and Ery leave?”
“Not until later today,” Lachlan sighed. “I know you want the kids with you, but we should really get them home.”
“I don’t want to leave them, which means leaving Regan.” Neither thought appealed to him.
“Let me and Robyn take the kids,” his brother offered. “You stay here with Regan.”
“I can’t.”
“They’ll be fine for a few hours with us,” Lachlan insisted. “And you and Regan need some time alone to talk when she wakes up.”
Thane’s gut knotted. “I doubt she’ll want to hear it.”
“Brother.” Lachlan leaned into him. “Before that bastard showed up … Regan ran to the one place you’d find her.”
It was true. Before they’d walked into the house and his world crashed down, he’d been beyond relieved to see Regan’s borrowed SUV in his driveway.
“Eils and Lew need to eat. If they don’t want to go to bed without you in the house, Robyn and I will camp out on the couch and watch movies with them until you return home.”
Knowing Eilidh and Lewis would be content enough with that, Thane finally nodded. “Thanks.”
Lachlan clamped him on the shoulder and gave him a comforting squeeze. “I’ll go wake Robyn so you can tell her sister that you’re in love with her.”
Thane’s lips trembled with tired laughter. “It’s been a strange bloody twenty-four hours.”
“It’s been a strange bloody year,” Lachlan countered before disappearing into Regan’s hospital room.
REGAN
The beeping woke me up.
As the hospital room came into focus, so did the memories of the previous night.
And the last thing I remembered was Lewis falling asleep on the hospital bed beside me.
Where was he?
Panicked, I patted the space at my side.
“Hey, hey.” A large, masculine hand took hold of mine. I followed it up a familiar arm clad in a white shirt. Still in his waistcoat and kilt, Thane sat by my bedside.
“Where are the children?” I croaked.
My tongue was like sandpaper, my mouth and throat dry as a desert.
Thane released my hand but only to get up to grab the cup of water from the small side table. Sliding an arm behind my back to help me sit up, he handed me the cup.
I drank thirstily, my eyes holding his. When I was done, I repeated, “Where are they?”
“At home,” he said in that deep, reassuring voice of his. “Robyn and Lachlan are watching over them.”
I waited as Thane took his seat again. “You stayed.”
Something like despair flashed in his soulful eyes. “I don’t think I can let you out of my sight for a while. As it was, Lachlan had to persuade me that letting the kids go home was best for them.”
“You should have gone with them.” I felt awful he’d had to choose. “I would have understood.”
“We need to talk,” he said bluntly.
Oh, no. Here it came.
The blame. The shame.
“I know!” I blurted out before he could continue. “I promised you my problems wouldn’t bring trouble, and I got Eilidh and Lewis hurt. I’m so sorry, Thane. I can’t ever make it up—”
“Hey, hey, hey.” Thane moved to the bed, pulling me into his side, cuddling me close. “No, don’t say that. Oh, mo leannan, you’re breaking my fucking heart. Please don’t blame yourself. This isn’t your fault.”
I sobbed at his kindness, because of course, it was my fault, and of course, he wouldn’t see it that way. “I didn’t see it … I didn’t see the dark in him, and I let him into my life and if I hadn’t forced myself into your life—”
“I would be the same man I was a year ago,” he cut me off, “existing for Eilidh and Lewis. Not unhappy, but not excited about life beyond them. I love my kids. I’m content to live for them. But I never imagined I’d wake up each morning feeling this much anticipation for what the day would bring. All because I have a woman I look forward to seeing every day, to talking with, to laughing with, to loving.”
I pulled away from him just enough to look into his eyes.
My breath caught at what I saw shining in them.
“I found Eredine and the children so quickly last night because I was chasing after you.”
“You were?”
Thane nodded, his eyes searching my face as if memorizing me. I didn’t care that I probably looked like hell. He was looking at me like I was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
“I never thought I’d be the kind of man to have insecurities,” he said ruefully. “The Adair men are a cocky bunch.”
I grinned at that.
He reached up to trace my smile with his thumb as his tone grew serious. “Fran’s betrayal came out of nowhere. I couldn’t have imagined that she would cheat on me. It shook me. It shook everything I believed in … Yet I also never thought it would stop me from moving on. While I hadn’t searched for anything serious with someone new, I wasn’t averse to it happening if the right person came along. I thought she’d be around my age, maybe have kids of her own, be settled in life.”
He caressed my cheek, a dark hunger in his expression. “Then you showed up. I knew from your first day on the job, that morning in the kitchen, when I caught you looking at me and I teased you about my hands … I knew you were dangerous to me. Young, vibrant, beautiful, my brother’s almost sister-in-law, with a bit of a reputation that I didn’t know at the time wasn’t earned.”
My heart pounded so hard, it was a wonder he didn’t feel it banging against him.
“But it was the way you were with Eilidh and Lewis that made me realize I was falling for you. The attraction got harder to ignore … and that first night I made to love you … I knew it then.”
“Knew what?” I dared to ask.
“That I’m so in love with you, it scares me.”
My breath caught as tears stung my nose.
He gave me that rueful smile again. “If it had just been about physical attraction, I could have controlled it, ignored it, never touched you, knowing how complicated the situation was. But I couldn’t stay away from you.”
“Me neither.”
“And when you protected Eilidh … I was so far gone for you. I kept telling myself to enjoy what I could, to remember you weren’t staying here permanently.”