There with You (Adair Family 2)

“Okay. Thanks again.”

He turned at the door as he opened it. “You’re the one helping me out of a jam.”

Regan gave him another dimpled smile. “We’re helping each other.”

“Right, right. The key and fob I gave you will let you into the house via the side entrance. Just swipe the fob over the white box on your right as you enter, and it will deactivate the night alarm.”

“Great. Will do.”

“Okay. Night, then.”

“Night,” she called softly as he followed the paving stones back to the house. “See you in the morning.”

He lifted an arm in a good-night gesture without looking back, and a strange uneasiness fell over him as he let himself into the main house. Perhaps it was just the action of trusting another human being, one he didn’t know all that well, with the care of his children. Letting her into his home. Lachlan had called him as he was driving back from work to tell him Regan had hashed everything out with Robyn, and the sisters were in a good place again. That had made him feel better about offering Regan the job, and Lachlan, who had grown even more mistrustful of people since Lucy’s betrayal, seemed to warm to his soon-to-be sister-in-law.

There had also been a hint of envy in Lachlan’s voice as he spoke of Robyn’s reunion with her sister. Thane knew his brother well. He was thinking of Arran and Brodan. He worried they were losing their younger brothers.

Walking around the house, Thane switched off lights, checked the doors and windows, grabbed a glass of water, and set the night alarm before making his way upstairs.

He quietly peeked into Eilidh’s room to find her spread across her bed like a sea star, already deep in dreamland. Love ached fiercely in his chest. She’d been so excited to hear Regan was their new nanny, he’d wondered if she would even fall asleep. But he shouldn’t have worried. Eils could fall asleep just about anywhere.

Moving onto Lewis’s room down the hall, he found his son curled on his side, his cheek cradled in his hand, and the ache grew stronger. Even Lew seemed content that Regan would look after them. His son, for such a wee boy, didn’t welcome new people into his life. And he was strange with those who appeared and disappeared out of it. Thane could only assume it was the effect of losing his mum so young. Something he’d never wanted to have in common with his son.

While Lachlan worried about Brodan and Arran, Thane did, too, but he was also angry with them. He never used to be. He was always the one tempering Lachlan’s irritation, reminding him their brothers wanted to find themselves outside the boundaries of the Adair family. Now, not so much.

He had nothing against them going out into the world and living their lives, but where was their love and consideration for family? Their youngest brother, Arran, had been terrible at communicating with them for years. They never knew where he was or what he was up to until he turned up at Christmas or maybe for a month during the summer. He barely knew his niece and nephew.

Brodan, the second-youngest brother, never used to be so bad. When he first moved to LA to work as an actor, he kept in touch every week. He came home whenever he could.

But something had changed over the last year.

Brodan had pushed them all away and was often in the tabloids, earning a reputation as the bad boy of Hollywood. It made no sense. Brodan had never been the wild, partying kind, even at an age when that was expected. He was smarter than all the siblings put together, always had his head stuck in a book, and had openly admitted he didn’t understand the fascination with drugs and alcohol.

Thane, like Lachlan, was most definitely concerned about their middle brother. But even through the frustration of his younger brothers making them worry and missing out on his children’s lives, Thane had hope that one day, they’d come home.

It was something he and Lachlan spoke of often, but as he walked into the large master suite he’d designed for him and Fran, Thane missed getting into bed beside her warmth and unloading all his worries. Fran was ever practical and sensible and always made him feel better.

Sitting on the bed, he stared at the framed photograph on his bedside table of him and Fran at uni.

They’d been together a year at that point. She sat on his knee in the student union, laughing up into the camera with him as he held her close. For a long time, he couldn’t look at pictures of her. Couldn’t bear the god-awful black hole of pain that opened inside him.

Time didn’t heal all, but it dulled the grief until he could look at photos, could talk to Eilidh and Lewis about how they’d inherited their mother’s beautiful dark hair, could fill them in on all the things they’d missed about the mother they never got to know.