There with You (Adair Family 2)

“Dad never mentioned it.” I’d spoken to him several times in the past few weeks. He and Mom were coming to Scotland for the Christmas holidays, courtesy of Lachlan. Dad was having trouble accepting that kind of generosity, but I told him it would be good for them to see how happy Robyn was here.

And our relationship with Mom wasn’t the best. We both still had unresolved issues there. I didn’t want that. I wanted us to move past them. Now all my worries about seeing Mom at Christmas paled compared to the news that Austin hadn’t let go of his obsession.

“His attack on you changes everything. I had to tell Seth, and he’s going to call you today. Be prepared because he’s going to ask you to press formal charges.”

I shook my head, anger and frustration bubbling inside me now. Thane had asked me to do the same thing, and I’d avoided responding. “You of all people know how hard it is to get those charges to stick under normal circumstances. Accusing him of attempted rape in a foreign country a year ago?” I glowered at her. “They’ll laugh at me.”

“No one is going to laugh at you. But Seth is right … if Austin hasn’t let his obsession with you go, then we need this on record. The charges will more than likely be dismissed before it even gets to court due to lack of evidence, but if we can track down Liam and Desi as witnesses, we might have a shot. And even if we can’t and the charges are dismissed, it will be on his record.”

“So that if anything else happens …” I trailed off, shuddering at the thought of anything else happening.

“Nothing is going to. He can’t get to you here. I need you to be brave one more time, Regan, and do this, not for me or your dad, but for yourself.”

Even though the thought made me want to puke, I knew I couldn’t run from it anymore. “Okay.”

Satisfied, Robyn gave me a nod and a look that said she was proud of me, and I had to admit, it felt great to make her proud.

After she made the coffee and slipped onto a stool next to me, she said, “I need you to do one more thing for me.”

“And that would be?”

“I need you to consider talking to someone. Professionally.”

Stiffening at a comment that seemed to come out of left field, I bristled. “You think I need to see a therapist?”

“Don’t say it like that.” She glared. “I went to therapy for months after I got shot.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Well, I did. I couldn’t cope with it all on my own. I had nightmares about killing Eddie Johnstone.”

Eddie Johnstone was the drug dealer who’d shot my sister. She’d fired back in self-defense and killed him.

“It all kind of snowballed. The shooting, my unhappiness with my job, why I became a cop, Mac’s abandonment. Therapy was the reason I came to see my dad in the first place. I realized that I’d never have any sense of closure until I knew why he’d left me. Unfortunately,” she said, heaving a sigh, “that opened up a whole new can of worms with Mom, but she and I are getting there. At least, we were getting there until I realized how much she’d screwed with your head over the years.”

“It’s just mom-and-daughter stuff,” I assured her. “At least she loves us. Other people have it way worse in the parent department.”

“True.” Robyn nudged me with her shoulder. “My point is, therapy helped.”

“And you think I need therapy?” The thought scared me.

As always, my sister read me like a book. “It’s not a shameful thing to need, Regan. And you have a terrible habit of either physically or mentally running away from your emotions. You ran away from me because you couldn’t deal with how frightened you were at the thought of losing me, and you ran away from your own memories of that night in Vietnam because you couldn’t deal with the trauma. And I’m so afraid that you’ll repeat it. Anytime life gets really hard or really sad, you’ll push everyone away and lock your shit down so tight that one day, it will all explode out of you, and the results could be devastating.”

I breathed a little harder because I knew she might be right, though at the same time certain she was wrong. “I won’t run. I didn’t run when McClintock tried to kidnap Eilidh. I’m not running now, even knowing Austin hasn’t backed off like I’d hoped. I’m in love with a man who sees me as something temporary, and it hurts like hell, but I’m not running away.”

Robyn’s expression filled with sympathy as she squeezed my hand. “That’s good. That’s great. I’m proud of you, and I hope that doesn’t come across as condescending.”